Star Maps

Output of Star Maps created by CMPSC 122 students, Steven Erb, Isaac Polinsky, Jeremy Saylor, and Gal Yaroslavsky.

Inspired by "Nifty Assignment: Star Charts and Constellations," by Prof. Karen Reid, University of Toronto.

Fractal Art

Students, in CMPSC 462: Data Structures, recently wrote programs that used recursive functions to generate variations of famous fractals. The programs generated these images by writing PostScript code, and, therefore, this approach is an example of metaprogramming in which a program writes another program.   Here is a small collection of their art.

Variation of a Sierpinksi Carpet - Aymen Ben Salah

Pythagorean Tree in Summer - David Solares

Pythagorean Tree in Fall - Dmitri Petanov

T-Square in Blank and White - Matthew Bretz

Multi-colored T-Square - Josh Pavoncello

Pythagorean Tree in Spring - Tanner Shaub

Barnsley Fern - Tyler Brown

Leaning Pythagorean Tree - Veronica Hull

Barnsley Fern in Fall - Travis Stodter

Press and Journal Publishes an Article on Euclid Project

The Press and Journal published an article on the Euclid project led by Dr. Boman.  Undergraduate students Siddharth Dahiya, Tyler Brown, Alexandra Milbrand, Viplav Patel, and graduate student Joseph Roberge have been working with Dr. Boman to visualize as a graph the inter-connections between Euclid's theorems.

"An Afternoon with Euler" Talk by William Dunham

You are invited to the following talk sponsored by the Penn State Harrisburg Math Club!

“An Afternoon with Euler”
By William Dunham
Koehler Professor of Mathematics Muhlenberg College

Wednesday, 17 October 2012 244E Olmstead Building at 6pm

NOTE: This talk is accessible to anyone who has seen calculus.

About the Talk:

“Among history’s greatest mathematicians is Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), the Swiss genius who produced an astonishing 25,000 pages of pure and applied mathematics over his long and illustrious career.

In this talk, we sketch Euler’s life and describe a few of his contributions to number theory, algebra, and other branches of mathematics. Then we examine a particular derivation: his proof of “Euler’s Identity” using integral calculus. The argument is short and (yes) a bit strange, but it perfectly illustrates Euler’s mathematical brilliance.

Condorcet, in his Eulogy to Euler, wrote that “All mathematicians now alive are his disciples.” This talk should make it clear that Condorcet’s words are as true today as when first set down, over two centuries ago.”

Biography:

“William Dunham, who received his B.S. (1969) from the University of Pittsburgh and his M.S. (1970) and Ph.D.(1974) from Ohio State, is the Truman Koehler Professor of Mathematics at Muhlenberg College.

Dunham’s expository writing has been recognized by the MAA with the George Pólya Award in 1993, the Trevor Evans Award in 1997 and 2008, the Lester R. Ford Award in 2006, and the Beckenbach Prize in 2008. The Association of American Publishers designated The Mathematical Universe as the Best Mathematics Book of 1994.”

FOOD WILL BE PROVIDED!

If you have any questions regarding the talk to be done by Dr William Dunham, please contact Viplav Patel at vnp5004@psu.edu or Dr Boman at ecb5@psu.edu. 

Metaprogramming to Create PostScript Art

Students, in CMPSC 122: Intermediate Programming, recently wrote c++ programs in order to output PostScript code in order to create patterns from lines and circles.  This approach is an example of metaprogramming in which a program writes another program.

Optical Illusion, by Thomas Dippolito (CMPSC 122)

Multi-Colored Disks, by Gal Yaroslavsky (CMPSC 122)
Gal used multiple lines to create the multicolored disks.

Bulls-Eye, by Jeremy Saylor (CMPSC 122)