?THE LITERARY GROUP
will next hear from Jim Ross
who will speak on
Quadratic Forms and Supersymmetry
Wednesday Feb 3 1993
3 30 PM Room 251
A mathematician named Ross
will speak on a subject that’s boss.
And if you’re not there
then you’re certainly square.
No, supersquare are you, says Ross
This was the first of the literary group limericks to see the light of day. In previous years the announcements contained the admonition "Be there or be square". One year we did it in 10 foreign languages. So the first limerick contains a transitional line.
The Literary Group
Peter Salamon will speak on
"The Question Answered-or- A Markov chain model for constrained maximum entropy"
Wednesday Feb 10 3 30 Room 251
Chemical Physics, it’s said,
to good mathematics has led.
But thoughts of entrohpy
can make you feel dopy,
and lead to a pain in the head
This is, of course an example of limerical license, requiring a stress on the second syllable of the word entropy for it to rhyme
.the
Literary Group
will next hear
Steve Piercespeak and make
"
Some Remarks on Algebraic Number Theory"Wednesday Feb 17 1993 3 30 PM Room 251
Not a matrix will be seen today
and tensors will be kept at bay.
So for such innovations
Pierce merits ovations
and many loud shouts of ole’!
Steve is a linear algebraist who decided to do something different. He assured me that there would be no matrices or tensors, so the news was spread.
The Literary Group
hears next from David Lesley, who will speak on Teichmueller spaces and BMOA
by Astala and ZinsmeisterWednesday Feb 24 3 30 PM Room 251
A conformal mapper named Dave
keeps maps and domains in a cave,
and so their interiors
and limit superiors
stay fresh, and are nicely behaved.
One of the classic limericks goes:
There once was a hermit named Dave,
who kept a dead whore in a cave......
Our version is a little more tasteful, and also alludes to the topic of the lecture, the boundary behavior of conformal mappings.
The Literary Group
hears next from Steve Hui, speaking on
Extremal problems from Statistical
Detection Theory
Wednesday March 3, 1993 3 30 PM Room 251
Here’s some work that was done for the Navy
whose ships sail on water, so wavy.
And things must be found
using nothing but sound,
so that Steve here can bring home some gravy.
Steve Hui has had a summer job with the navy for the last few years, and has often spoken on topics arising at work.
The Literary Group
next hears
Art Springer ask (and answer?) the questionCan Lie Geometry Really Be Useful?
Wednesday March 10, 1993 3 30 Room 251
Sophus Lie was quite a guy,
whose math reputation stands high.
And all he has told us
is not hocus pocus,
for Sophus, we know, would not lie.
The Literary Group
Our next speaker, soon to be here
comes from Deutschland, not very near.
Martin Bohner is he,
and all will agree,
it’s a long way to come for a beer.
Existence and Oscillation Problems for Sturm-Liouville Eigenvalue Problems
Wednesday March 17, 1993 3 30 PM
Room 251
Martin was one of our exchange students from Ulm. He is a great devotee of Salazar’s Mexican cafe, to which we always migrated after the literary groups in those days. Any other excuse was also sufficient.
The Literary Group
will hear next from
Henry Bray who speaks on"Some Criteria for Logical Soundness"
Wednesday 3 30 March 24, 1993 Room 251
The very next time that we meet
Prof Bray will be up on his feet
and he will explain
the sorrow and pain
caused by logic he thinks incomplete.
The Literary Group
next hears
Edgar Howard speak onThe Baire Category Theorem and Abelian Groups
Wednesday March 32 3 30 PM Room 251
An Abelian Groupie named Claire
loved to commute everywhere.
She thought Galois ideal,
and that Zorn had appeal,
but the best was to do it with Baire.
to commute with, that is. A word of expication: the operation of an Abelian group commutes, i.e. ab=ba. One topic in this talk involved "Galois ideals", and "Zorn’s lemma" figures in the theory a lot.
The Literary Group
returns refreshed from break to hear
Betty Garrison
speak on"Primes represented by Polynomials"
Wednesday April 14 3 30 PM Room 251
To think of the integers prime
is a fine way to pass away time.
That their relative share of
those integers there
is like one over log, how sublime!
This is a reference to the famous Prime Number theorem. If P(n) is the number of primes less than n , so that P(n)/n is the proportion of primes less than n, then as n grows P(n)/n converges to 1/log(n), in the appropriate sense.
The Literary Group
will hear
David Carlson speak on"Revisiting Matrix Theory"
Wednesday April 21, 1993 Room 251 3 30 PM
1 Since Day told us to be economical
-2 3 Dave’s matrices now are all conical.
3 3 2 But to show them this way,
-1 4 2 6 in triangle array,
is hardly a form that’s canonical.
This was at about the time that the University budget was in big trouble. Peter Salamon thought that the talk was really about triangular matrices.
The Literary Group
next hears
Steve Kirschvink
speak on
Recurrence in Repeated Experiments
Wednesday April 28 3 30 PM Room 251
There once was a lass from Berlin
whose predisposition was sin.
Each time she repeated
a scene which was heated,
it was deja vu, once again.
The Literary Group
next hears Mark Dunster ask the musical question:
When are Mathieu Functions Periodic?
Wednesday, May 5 1993 3 30 PM Room 251
Ode to an O.D.E.
w’’(z) + (a+b cos z) w(z)=0
This equation that’s due to Mathieu
has answers we wish that we knew.
Were "a" one and "b" nil,
then we could be still,
for sine and cosine would then do.
Much to my astonishment, the talk was exactly as the limerick predicted.
The Literary Group
will conclude the year with a lecture by Sara Baase speaking on
"
A look at the literature on climate modeling"Wednesday, May 12, 1993 3 30 PM Room 251
Some people, for reasons political,
of warming trend warnings are critical.
So come and you’ll learn
how the stuff that we burn,
will cause us no harm that is physical.
Sara is known in the department for her Libertarian views. I must admit that I assumed she was taking the Rush Limbaugh line that the global warming scare is a liberal plot to erode our standard of living. The talk was informative and balanced, and she later sent me a counter-limerick which chided me for being unscientific. Touche’.
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Colloquium
Johan Swart
University of Natal
Petermaritzburg, South Africa
ON EXTENDING CONTINUOUS FUNCTIONS
Wednesday July 7, 1993 3 00 PM BA 261
Today’s speaker is from down under,
though not from the place where men chunder.
So for function extensions
in many dimensions,
be there, or you’re making a blunder
For those who don’t remember the Men at Work song, to chunder is to throw up, which is often done by Australians who drink too much of that watery beer they have down there.
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Colloquium
John McCarthy
Washington University, St. Louis
(visiting UCSD)
Prediction Theory: How to GET RICH from Complex Analysis
Friday July 16, 1993 2 00 PM BA 261
A young man from Limerick will show
how zeds can be used to make dough.
He’ll use Hp spaces,
not Kings Queen or Aces,
and all in the disk around O.
John McCarthy is actually from Limerick, so this had to be special. It’s one of my favorites.
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Colloquium
Martin Bohner
University of ULM
An Oscillation Theorem for Sturm-Liouville Difference Equations with Separated Boundary Conditions
Wednesday, September 1, 1993
3 30 PM BAM 261
It once was a dark Sturmy night
and in Liouville Kentucky the sight
of strange oscillations
for difference equations
gave dogs and young children a fright.
Martin later completed his Ph. D. writing on this topic and this limerick appears at the beginnning of the thesis.
The Literary Group
revives with
Steve Hui
s
peaking onZeros of polynomials and robust linear systems: Kharitonov’s Theorem Revisited
Wednesday 3 30 Room 261 Sept 8, 1993
Oh where could all the roots be
for this function ?
If the roots all lie west,
then this is the best,
for the system is stable, you see
This is a reference to the fact that if the eigenvalues of a linear "west" in the complex plane, then the system is stable.
The Literary Group
next hears
Don Lutz speakOn a simple difference equation and its strange solutions
Thursday
Sept 16, 1993 3 30 PM Room 261
A mathematician named Lutz
can handle equations that futz.
When answers act badly
he tackles them gladly
and threatens to kick all their butz.
I’d waited for a long time to use this rhyme.
The Literary Group
next hears
Jim Ross speak onRecent Results in Quasiconvexity
Wednsday Sept 22,1993 3 30 PM Room 261
When Jim thinks of things quasiconvex,
they always remind him of sex.
But quasiconvexity
leads then to dyslexity
.gnissarrabme yrev be nac taht dna
Jim was sure there was some hidden meaning to this, but how many rhymes are there with quasiconvex? Besides, there is a certain limerical tradition to uphold. By the way, typing backward is a lot harder than writing backward.
The Literary Group
will hear Jens Nonnenmacher speak on
New Integrals and the Divergence Theorem
Wednesday Sept 29, 1993 3 30 pm BAM 261
Our visitor, Jens Nonnenmacher,
must really be quite a smooth talker,
for he’s wintering here,
drinking Salazar’s beer,
while Steve Hui is in Ulm watching soccer.
There was a mistake in the title because it was given to me orally. It should be the greek letter nu instead of the word new. Jens was an exchange visitor. He was with us while Steve was working in Ulm. Salazar’s, of course, is the nearby Mexican restaurant at which the weekly Nachsitzung was staged at that time.
The Literary Group
hears
Steve Pierce
speak on
Nilpotent Matrices
Wednesday Oct 6, 1993 3 30 PM Room 261
AAA....AA = 0
This matrix has got poor Steve huffing.
He multiplies ‘til he is puffing.
But what does he gain
for all of this pain?
He’s done all this work here for nothing.
Steve used this one as an introduction to a conference lecture he gave on the topic.
The Literary Group
has the high privelege of hearing
Ed Howard
speak on
An Introduction to Valuated Abelian Groups
Wednesday Oct 13 3 30 PM Room 261
Ed Howard (whose lip is hirsute)
thinks often of groups that commute.
Now they’re valuated,
and most highly rated.
Of this therecan be no dispute.
The Literary Group
next hears
Bob Grone
speak on
Convexity and
Second Derivatives
Wednesday Oct. 20, 1993 Room 261
Linear Algebra’s Grone
and matrices that he has known
will be on display
at 3 30 today,
so let us not leave him alone.
This was actualy the first LG limerick written, but it was done after Bob’s lecture, so it had to wait.
The Literary Group
will next hear
Marc Dunster
speak on
New Asmptotic Results for Jacobi Polynomials
Thursday Oct 28, 3 30 pm Room 261
Are Jacobi’s polynomials neurotic?
Or are they just half asymptotic?
But Marc says in the long run
these functions are great fun.
Come see Thursday. (We’re not periodic.)
The lectures had ususally been on Wednesday, so the parenthetical remark was meant to point out the day change. I’ve always liked the idea of being half asymptotic.
The Literary Group
resumes with
Jens Nonnenmacher
presenting
A Simple Elementary Proof of the Jordan Curve Theorem
Wednesday Nov 17 3 30 pm Room 259
This Wednesday our visitor Jens
will show us the outs and the ins
of a simple closed curve.
In fact he has the nerve
to attempt a new proof that makes sens.
The Jordan curve theorem assert that a closed curve that doesn’t cross itself divides the plane into an inside and an outside. The elementary proofs are usually somewhat involved.
The Literary Group
next hears
David Lesley
speak on
The Schwarzian Derivative
Wednesday Dec. 8, 1993 3 30 PM Room 261
Hermann Schwarz was a man of the C,
whose results we all use constantly.
We reflect on their beauty;
the inequaliy’s a cutie,
and his Lemma’s the best that you’ll see.
This refers to the Schwarz reflection principle, the Schwarz inequality, and the Schwarz Lemma. They are all eaasential to comple analysis, which takes place in the complex plane, known as C.
The Literary Group
resumes with a talk by what's left of Bob Grone on
Super-duper symmetric Matrices.
on Wednesday February 9 1994, at 3 30 PM in Room 261.
Our matrix theorist Grone
is wasting away to the bone
So plan to be here
before, lacking beer
he vanishes altogether
At this time Bob was on a supervised diet, during which he lost about 80 pounds. He bottomed out at about 240, so he was in no danger of disappearing.
The Literary Group
next hears Jose Castillo speak on
Grid generation compatible with finite difference schemes
Wednesday February 16, 1994 3 30 PM Room 261
These grids, which look quite arabesque,
are ready for work on your task.
What's the difference, you say,
twixt grid B and grid A?
Well that depends on whom you ask!
One of the major questions we all had about Jose’s work on grids was how to judge how one grid was better than another.
THE LITERARY GROUP
next hears Mark Dunster speak
On Singular Perturbation Problems and Special Functions
Wednesday February 23 330 PM Room 261
"These functions are special.", Mark says , "Take note!"
He's so proud of them that he's oft prone to gloat.
But when they're disturbed,
or just slightly perturbed,
they'll wander away from their asymptote
The Literary Group
next hears a visitor from ULM
Prof Werner Balser
speak
On Fluid Dynamics Near a Fast Eddy
Wednesday March 2 3:30 Pm Room 261
One winter a fearless young Druid
dived into a rotating fluid.
But he was not ready
for such a fast eddy.
The poor fellow's head came unscruid.
With a title like this, the limerick was easy. You can also see why some limericks must be read rather than heard.
The Literary Group
next hears
Steve Kirschvink
speak on
A Semilinear Singular Perturbation Problem
Wednesday March 9, 1994 3 30 pm Room 261
There was a young man from Virginia
whose problems were all semilineah.
So he wrote to Kirschvink
who knew just what to think,
and asked, "Straighten this out for me, kin ya?"
Straightening it out refers of course to
making a linear approximation.
The Literary Group
this week features
Ray Menegus
of
Albuquerque Academy
speaking on
ENTROPY,INFORMATION and CHAOS in TWO DIMENSIONAl SYSTEMS
WEDNESDAY MARCH 23 330 PM ROOM 261
NACHSITZUNG AT LA JOLLA BREWING CO
THIS LECTURE CONCERNS MAXWELL'S DEMON
WHOSE ACTIONS ARE INNOCENT SEEMIN'.
BUT HE HOLDS NO AWE
FOR THE GREAT SECOND LAW,
SO HIS ENGINE JUST KEEPS RIGHT ON STEAMIN'.
Maxwell’s demon is a gremlin who manages to make a perpetual motion machine work. This violates the second law of thermodynamics, of course. Ray Menegus is a noted high school Physics teacher and track coach who I run with.
The Literary Group
will hear Jim Ross explain the meaning of the title:
More
S 2Wednesday April 6, 1994 3:30 in room 261
Oh! Don't we wish that we knew,
what it means, this cryptic
S 2?It is some sort of square,
so you'd better be there.
or else all will see that it's you.
This is another reference to "Be there or be square".
The Literary Group
continues with an appearance by
Lt. Col. Don Lutz
who will speak on
Nonlinear Difference Equations without Chaos; Their Reduction and Solution
Tuesday
April 12 1994 1530 Room 261
Hpw can these equations reduce?
Must they live on bananas and juice?
Can equations, nonlinear,
aspire to be skinnier?
The solution might be of some use.
The Literary Group
Steve Hui
will speak on
Almost periodic functions,invariant subspaces and signal processing
Wednesday - April 20 -3 30 PM - Room 261
fFFfFFfFFfFFFfFFfFFffFF
SSSSSSSSSSSSSS
. .- - ... .... .. -
=
HAVE A NICE DAY
Okay, it’s not a limerick.
But the first line is almost periodic, the second is certainly invariant, and the third is Morse code, courtesy of master radio technician, Sgt Edgar Howard USMC (ret).THE LITERARY GROUP
NEXT HEARS
STEVE PIERCE SPEAK ONAVOIDING THE RANK ONE MATRICES
WEDNESDAY APRIL 27 3 30 PM ROOM 261
THESE MAPPINGS AREN'T HARD TO DIVINE.
THEY SQUASH A WHOLE SPACE TO A LINE.
BUT THE PROCESS IS DIRTY,
AND SO AWFULLY HURTY,
IT MAKES PIERCE GIVE A GRONE AND A WHINE.
A rank one matrix transforms n dimensional space into a one dimensional space.
The Literary Group
next hears
Andy McHugh
(of SUNY Stonybrook)Integrability along super light rays and the supersymmetric Yang-Mills equations
THURSDAY
MAY 5,330 PM BA261(THAT'S CINCO DE MAYO)
THERE WAS A YOUNG MAN FROM NEW YORK
WHO ON YANG MILLS EQUATIONS DID WORK
HE GOT THIS FASCINATION
WHEN, BACK IN GESTATION,
HIS MOTHER WAS SCARED BY A QUARK
Andy was a mathematical physicist who taught part time for us while his wife was in graduate school at UCSD.
The Literary Group
this week joins the Math Club in welcoming
John DeBeer
of Bumble Bee Seafoods, speaking on
PROBLEM SOLVING IN THE TUNA INDUSTRY
Wednesday, May11, 1994, 3 30 PM, Room 261
What sorts of problems are these,
in our title meant as a tease?
There's a lot of good math
leading fish on the path
to a casserole, mixed up with cheese.
John is another friend from the real world. But I made a mistake. He works for Chicken of the Sea. This was a Math Club talk, meant for students.
The Literary Group
will finish the year with
David Lesley
speaking on
Approximation of analytic functions on touching domains
Friday May 20 1994 3 30 pm Room 261
This talk’s on the day of the dead
before tests (which all students dread).
So remember the date
and don’t show up late,
or you might get a smack on the head.
The Literary Gruppe
is again visited by
Martin Bohner
Jacobi's Condition for Discrete Quadratic Functionals
Thursday June 9, 1994 3:30 PM , BA 261
When seeking a bottom or top,
you'd like to know when you can stop,
and Jacobi's condition
gives you welcome permission
to say, "This one's the best of the crop."
Jacobi conditions are sufficient conditions for an extremum, like the second derivative test.
Die Literarische Gruppe
continues die Deutsche Reihe mit
Jens Nonnenmacher
wer spricht an
A Generalized Normal to a Plane Curve and Green's Theorem
Tuesday, June 21 1994, 3 30 PM Room 261
Our next speaker, Jens Nonnenmacher
arrives just as the world all plays soccer.
But we'll all come to hear,
then go out for a bier,
as he really is quite a smooth talker.
This visit by one of our German colleagues occurred just before the World Cup games took place in Los Angeles.
The Literary Gruppe
completes the Deutsche Reihe mit
Uli Kruger
of Halle (formerly East) Germany
Greedoids,Greedy Algorithms, and Interchange Stable Hereditary Languages
Thursday, June 23 1994 3 30 PM BA 261
The good optimiser's request
is to make an objective its best.
So for mini or max,
just give Uli the Facts,
and efficiently he'll do the rest
Le Groupe litteeraire
will have the grand plaisir
to hear M. le Professeur Reinhard Schafke
from the
Universite Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg
speak on
"French Ducks and the Majorant Method"
on
Wednesday, August 31, 1994 at 3 30 pm
in BAM-261
An exotic and alluring canard
met a dashing and cunning renard (Reinhard),
who majorized and caught her,
then analyzed and brought her,
to be served on a platter, plus tard.
Don Lutz wrote this one. Not bad.
The Literary Group
next hears
Mark Dunster
Blowing away the Stokes mist
Wednesday Sept 7, 1994 3 30 PM Room 261
There once was a fellow named Stokes
who hid things with fogs and with smokes.
But then our young man,
taking hold his great fan,
cleared the air in a couple of strokes.
The Literary Group
features
Steve Hui
speaking on
A Calculus for an Algebra of Almost Differentiable Functions
Wednesday, September 14, 3 30 PM, BA 261
There once was a function named g,
whose tangents were not meant to be.
There were wiggles and jumps
and just too many bumps,
so to fix it we sent g to Hui.
THE LITERARY GROUP
next hears
Lt. Col. Don Lutz
speak on
Unraveling the Stokes Phenomenon with the Help of Resurgent Functions
Wednesday, Sept 20, 1994 3 30 PM BA 261
There once was a fellow from Syracuse
whose taste in math problems was sure abstruse.
But he did seem to love
this topic above.
I can only guess one of his gears was loose.
THE LITERARY GROUP
RETURNS WITH
DAVID LESLEY
SPEAKING ON
ASYMPTOTIC VALUES AND THE GROWTH OF ANALYTIC FUNCTIONS IN SPIRAL DOMAINS
BY J. BRENNAN AND A.VOLBERG
WEDNESDAY OCT 12 1994 330 PM BA 261
We'll consider an f on the disk,
whose growth puts the boundary at risk,
an example so cool,
that it proves sharp, the rule.
Two thumbs up, proclaim Eber' and Sisk' !
THE
LITERARY GROUPnext dedicates a cheesy Danish
to
PETER SALAMON
who speaks on
A QUERY ALGORITHM FOR THE
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 19 3 30 PM BA 261
When trying to find the best line,
there's no need to moan or to whine.
Just follow Pete's path
and you'll know what to ask.
For regression, this lesson's just fine.
Peter had just returned from one of his almost periodic trips to Denmark. hence the reference to the cheesy Danish.
The Literary Group
has a change of pace as
C.J. Park
will tell us
How to Enjoy NFL Games
(if you are a statistician)
Wednesday October 26 1994 3 30 pm BA 261
There once was a fellow from Seoul
whose passion was the Super Bowl.
He tried to pick teams
using stats by the reams,
but was vexed by a wayward field goal.
The purpose of the underlining in the second line is to force the proper emphasis so that the limerick scans.
The Literary Group
is priveleged to hear
Steve Pierce
expound on
The Inertia of Super-symmetric Matrices
Wednesday November 2, 1994 3 30 pm BAM 261
There was a young man from PB
whose matrices oozed symmetry,
so that when they're reflected,
in ways unexpected,
they still look the same, don't you see.
Yes, Steve lives in Pacific Beach.
The Literary Group
next hears
Jim Ross
inform us
Why Sobolev Spaces are Natural
Wednesday November 16, 1994 3 30 pm BAM 261
This speaker is from Minnesota,
whose number of lakes is o'er quota.
It's awfully cold there,
in the crisp winter air,
but balmy compared to Dakota.
How many words do YOU know that rhyme with Minnesota? Doug McLeod (who is from North Dakota) took exception to this.
The Literary Group
ends with a bang as
Vernor Vinge
tells us about
THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 3 30 PM BAM 261
WE'LL HEAR HERE A WRITER WHOSE BOOKS
HAVE CREATURES WITH VERY STRANGE LOOKS.
HIS THOUGHTS ON WHAT'S COMING
WILL START YOUR HEAD HUMMING,
AND CAUSE YOU TO CRY OUT "GADZOOKS!"
Vernor had recently won the Hugo award for science fiction writing.
The Literary Group
begins again with
Bob Grone
speaking
ON FACTORING AX2+BX+C
WEDNESDAY FEB 1, 1995 3 30 PM BAM 261
Behold the quadratic expression
on which Bob will teach us a lesson.
But we'd better take care,
for those letters up there
are not numbers, or so I'd be guessin'.
Surprise! They were matrices!
The Literary Group
next endures a rare treat when
David Carlson
speaks on
COUNTING DISTINCT ENTRIES IN VECTORS
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 15, 3 30 PM BAM 261
A HERDER OF VECTORS NAMED CARLSON
SAW THEY WERE ACTING QUITE QUARRELSOME.
SO HE COUNTED THEIR ENTRIES;
SOMEONE'D SLIPPED BY THE SENTRIES,
AND UNAUTHORIZEDLY BORROWED SOME.
THE LITERARY GROUP
next hears
Jim Daniels
Chair of Math Department- Palomar College
inform us of their experiments with computers and Calculus
TEACHING CALCULUS USING DERIVE
Wednesday Feb. 22 1995 3 30 PM BAM 261
There was a north coumty JC
whose teachers decided to see
whether Math could be taught,
and improve student's lot
with computers, both Mac and PC.
THE LITERARY GROUP
WILL NEXT HEAR
ART SPRINGER
EXPOUND
ON
CONGRUENCE OF DISTANCE MATRICES USING A TRICK OF SOPHUS LIE
WED. MARCH 1 1995 3 30 PM BAM 261
THERE WAS A NORWEGIAN NAMED LIE,
AND QUITE AN OLD TRICKSTER WAS HE.
WE'LL SEE HOW AN INSTANCE
OF A MATRIX SHOWS DISTANCE,
AS ART EXPLAINS HOW IT CAN BE.
The Literary Group
next hears
Oberstleutnant Don Lutz
expound on
DIVERGENT SOLUTIONS OF THE HEAT EQUATION AND THEIR MEANING
WEDNESDAY MARCH 15 1995 3 30 PM BAM 261
(THIS IS THE 2038TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF CAESAR)
Come listen the next time we meet,
as Don speaks of his problems with heat.
His solutions diverge
for they have a strong urge
to wander away, down the street.
Remember, there was no year 0.
THE LITERARY GROUP
WILL NEXT HEAR
Peter Salamon
enlighten us
ON
Cutting the energy cost in distillation: a geometric approach
WED MARCH 22 1995 3 30 PM BAM 261
There was a distiller of gin,
whose light bills were doing him in,
so he used higher math
on the stuff in his bath;
now his gin is so cheap it's a sin.
THE LITERARY GROUP
greets the return of
Christian Schon
University of Bonn
as he tells us about
Modeling the Growth of Islands on a Two Dimensional Surface
Wed. MARCH 29 1995 3 30 PM BAM 261
There once was a fellow from Bonn,
when he left, said he'd not be gone long.
He'll reveal his beliefs
how isles, atolls and reefs
grow, out in the ocean beyond.
Christian was a long term visitor in the past.
THE LITERARY GROUP
returns refreshed and ready to hear
Saul Drobnies
speak on
Estimating Remainders in the Laurent expansion of Special Functions
Wed. April 19, 1995 3 30 PM BAM 261
(Patriots Day)
There was a French dude named Laurent,
whose series is all you could want.
When close to a pole
it plays just the right role.
(You can find it in books by Courant.)
Don Lutz claims that Laurent sereies appear in none of Courant’s books. Poetic license.
THE LITERARY GROUP
will next hear
Steve Pierce
speak on
Factorization of Matrix Polynomials
or
What I Learned At Waterloo
Wed. May 3, 1995 3 30 PM BAM 261
There once was a leader of France
who in Belgium thought he'd take a chance,
after which his design
was that England resign,
but Wellington stopped his advance.
(after which he said "Able was I ere I saw Elba".)
THE LITERARY GROUP
by popular demand brings back
John Elwin
to speak on
Strong Orientations and a Nonstandard Interpretation of the Chromatic Polynomial
Wed. May 10, 1995 3 30 PM BAM 261
When called on to color a graph,
Johnny E always has the last laugh.
It never takes more
than two, three or four.
He says which, then it's done by his staff.
THE LITERARY GROUP
finishes off another year as
TUNC GEVECI
holds forth on
A Constructive Introduction to Infinite Series
A Tribute to Errett Bishop
Wed. May 17, 1995 3 30 PM BAM 261
In matters of faith in convergence,
or belief in eventual divergence,
we could talk to a priest
or some cleric, at least,
but best ask for a Bishop's Indulgence.
THE LITERARY GROUP
RETURNS,
FEATURING
RAY KILLGROVE :
CONICS IN PROJECTIVE GEOMETRY
WEDNESDAY, SEPT 6 , 1995 3 30 PM BAM 261
When trying to find rhymes with "conics",
Ray read books on rhyming and phonics.
But having no luck
he said "what the heck"
and settled for 2 gin and tonics.
The Literary Gruppe
next hears
Lt. Col Don Lutz
tell us about
Surreal Numbers
Wednesday Sept 13 1995 330 pm BAM 261
We’ve all seen the clocks drawn by Dali,
an artist who speaks of life’s folly.
The digits telling time
are surreal, and sublime.
Now Don Lutz will explain them, by golly!
The Literary Group
next hears
Bob Grone
on
Extreme Points, Determinants and Permanents of Doubly Stochastic Matrices
Wednesday Sept 20, 3 30 pm BAM 261
Is there anything under the firmament
as beautiful as a determinant?
Well if you ask me,
(and Bob will agree)
the only thing close is a permanent!
The Literary Group
welcomes our visitor
Hans Zwiesler
speaking on
The Mathematics Behind Disability Insurance
Wednesday Sept. 27, 1995 3 30 pm Ba 261
If your skills you want to insure,
so they’re sharp and a long while endure,
then this math leads the way,
and there’s not much to pay.
We assure you Hans’ motives are pure.
The Literary Group
next features
Duane Steffey
speaking on
Designing Experiments with Severe Constraints on Sample Size
Thursday Oct. 5, 3 30 pm Bam 261
THE 38th ANNIVERSARY OF SPUTNIK!
When the Reds made that little ball spin
round the Earth, it looked like they’d win.
SoCongress got tough
and spent just enough,
that the colleges let us all in.
The Literary Group
turns to the fine arts as
Arthur Springer
tells us about
The Use of Projective geometry in Perspective drawing
Wednesday, October 11, 1995, 3 30 PM BAM 261
While teaching the History of Math,
and planning the course in his bath,
Art cried out "Eureka! "
(he was heard in Topeka)
"One cannot find a parallel path!"
The Literary Group
welcomes a guest from Italy
Prof. Paolo d’Alessandro
of the THIRD UNIVERSITY OF ROME
who will speak on
GENERAL CLOSED LOOP SOLUTION OF LINEAR DYNAMIC DISCRETE- TIME OPTIMIZATION PROBLEMS
Wednesday October 18, 1995 3 30 pm BAM 261
A mathematician from Rome
is visiting far from his home.
Here, we optimize
the audience size
each week with a suitable pome.
The Literary Group
next hears
David Lesley
speak on
The Dyadic Geometry of curves
Wednesday Oct 25 1995 3 30 pm BAM 261
We’ll see how to look at a curve
and follow its turn and its swerve
when it doesn’t have length
and the calculus’ strength
to describe the geometric preserve.
The Literary Group
next hears
Steve Hui
speak on
Random Power Series
Wednesday November 1, 1995 3 30 pm BAM 261
The numbers that fit in the space
come by chance from some unsure place.
So what can one say,
when they’re chosen this way,
pulled out of a hat or a vase?
The Literary Group
next hears
Jose Castillo
speak on
Linear Algebra in Grid Generation
Thursday November 9, 1995 3 30 pm Bam 260
He’s often been told there’s no way
that a grid can do all that they say.
But he’ll use vector spaces,
determinants, traces
to show us a grid that can pay.
The Literary Group
next features
Dr. Joseph Schumi,
Vice President, St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance
speaking on
The Joy of Actuaries
Tuesday November 14 1995 BA 260
330 PM
Students are especially encouraged to attend
To learn what this job is about,
come listen, and here you’ll find out.
(The trick is to charge
a premium so large
that there’s money left over, no doubt.)
The Literary Group
concludes the year with
Peter Salamon
giving us
An Update on Distillation and an interesting Difference Equation
Thursday 3 30 pm December 7, 1995 Bam 260
Pete has a difference equation,
related to cheap distillation.
Using methods by Lotka,
he could make so much Vodka,
it would scandalize Miss Carry Nation.
THE LITERARY GROUP
BEGINS THIS OLYMPIC YEAR WITH
Steve Pierce
speaking about
Factorization of Matrix Polynomials II
Friday 3 30 PM BA 261
February 2, 1996 (Groundhog Day)
If you think that this topic’s familiar,
that you’ve heard this, or something similiar:
just ignore that last II,
for it’s not deja vu,
Steve’s cooked up some new stuff just for you.
The Literary Group
proudly presents
Peter Salamon
speaking on
MODELING, DIFFERENTIAL GEOMETRY AND THERMODYNAMICS
FRIDAY 3 30 PM FEB 9, 1996 BAM 261
There once was a fellow of Trinity
who tried to take 
.
But all of those digits
gave him the fidgets;
he gave up math and took up divinity.
George Gamow
One Two Three Infinity
The Literary Group
celebrates the return of the prodigal
Mark Dunster
who will tell us all about
The growth of the coefficients appearing in an asymptotic expansion of the exponential integral.
Friday February 23, 1996 3 30 pm Bam 261
Mark’s been gone for a very long year
(he got married too, didn’t you hear?),
so we’ll welcome him back
as we watch him attack
coefficients to earn his next beer.
THELITERARY GROUP
NEXT HEARS FROM
STEVE HUI
SPEAKING ON
Analytic functions, Banach spaces and the Continuum hypothesis
Friday March 1 1996 3 30 pm Bam 261
If you wonder how big sets can be,
"It don’t matter!", said Cohen, you see.
So you may assume
that there’s plenty of room
twixt the cardinals of R and of Z.
Die Literarische Gruppe
greets our visitor
WERNER BALSER
who speaks on
Summation of Formal Power Series Solutions to Ordinary Differential Equations
Friday
March 8, 1996 3 30 PMBAM 261
If your series’ terms just seem to zoom
and convergence seems destined for doom,
be assured, there’s a way,
as for very small pay,
they’ll be fixed by this fellow from Ulm
THE LITERARY GROUP
next hears from
JOE MAHAFFY
speak on
AGE STRUCTURED MODELING OF RED BLOOD CELL PRODUCTION
FRIDAY MARCH 15, 1996 3 30 PM BA 261
Joe seeks to use math, which is logical
to study ideas biological.
But when things don’t work out,
he’s tempted to shout
out words that you’d call scatological.
The Literary Group
anticipates the break with
Bob Grone
who speaks on
Kronecker Products and Algebraic Integers
Friday March 29, 1996, 3 30 PM BA 261
is a case that Bob’s cooked up for you
if you want an example,
a taste, or a sample,
its roots are the things that will do
The Literary Group
hears from Boss Emeritus
David Carlson
as he shows us that
C has 82,644,629 Codewords
(a topic in Algebraic Coding Theory)
FRIDAY APRIL 12, 1996 3 30 PM BAM 261
It’s said that God has many names
and that chanting them saves us from flames.
But counting C’s words
is a task for the birds,
so Dave tallies them up with math games.
The Literary Group
next hears
David Lesley
raise his weary bones to speak on
BEST APPROXIMATION BYANALYTIC AND HARMONIC POLYNOMIALS
Friday April 19, 1996 330 pm BAM 261
N
ews item: Ted Kaczynski’s colleagues at UC Berkeley recall that he never came to drink beer with them after departmental seminars.After hearing of functions harmonic
you’ll surely be needing a tonic.
So please join us for brew,
lest we all recall you
as a person who might be demonic.
THE LITERARY GROUP
is next regaled by
ART SPINGER
who will explain the hubbub:
The Physics behind Witten Dualities
Friday May 3 1996 BAM 261 3 30 PM
Art Springer will give us a tour
of the new mathematics du jour,
and tell where it comes from
so we won’t feel so dumb
as to think that the math is just pure.
The Literary Group
concludes the year
with a foreign visitor:
Bill Harvey
Kings College, London
visiting CUNY
speaking on
Univalent Functions and Teichmuller Theory for Complex Dynamics
Friday, May 17, 1996 3 30 PM BAM 261
William Harvey the elder knew blood,
and this William Harvey’s no dud.
Instead of corpuscles,
we’ll see Mandelbrot’s mussels
(they look just like oysters in mud.)
Mimi Grifkin’s Thesis Defense
May 23 1996
There once was an E.E. named Mimi
whose job at G.D. made her screamy,
so she learned math from Hui,
Lutz, Howard and me,
and now thinks that Zygmund is dreamy
The Literary Group
returns from its summer hiatus
with a talk by
Don Lutz
expositing on
Factorization of Matrix Functions and Canonical Forms for Differential Equations
Friday, September 6, 1996
BAM 261 3 30 PM
There once was a Lieutenant Kernel,
which you can look up in a journal.
It’s useful for solving
a system evolving
with period which is diurnal.
The Literary Group
hears our latest visitor from abroad
Paolo Sibani
of the University of Odense, Denmark
speak on
Relaxation Dynamics in Energy Landscapes with Multiple Minima
Friday the 13th of September 3 30 PM BAM 261
Here is a young man from Odense,
with a method that makes lots of sense.
You’ll see how relaxation
aids in minimization,
and it won’t even cost you two cents.
The Literary Group
presents one of our own
Mark Coodey
of UC Santa Barbara
formerly of SDSU
speaking on
Subdifferentials and Set Valued Maps
Friday, September 20, 1996 3 30 PM BAM 261
There was a young fellow at State
who to Nachsitzung never was late.
But now it’s his turn
and so he must earn
his own with a talk that’s first rate.
The Literary Group
proudly presents another of our offspring
Paul Brock
most recently of Washington State University
speaking on
Probabilistic Convergence Spaces
Friday Sept 27, 1996 3 30 PM BAM 261
When thinking of things topological,
Paul’s method is quite ontological:
To know something exists,
and that it persists,
just say so; the rest is then logical.
THE LITERARY GROUP
next hears from
ART SPRINGER
who will tell us all about
THE ELASTIC SPHERICAL
PENDULUM
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1996 3 30 PM BAM 261
When Art feels like being bombastic,
he pulls out his piece of elastic.
Then while it swings
he quite loudly sings:
"Who knows where it goes? It’s fantastic!"
The Literary Group
next hears from
C. J. Park
speaking on
ThE nUmBEr Of UPS in A SeQueNce Of BeRNouLLi RAndoM VaRiabLes
Friday October 11, 1996 3 30 PM BAM 261
There once was a fellow from Seoul,
who bet Satan he knew how dice roll.
"I know that I’ll win
if I just can stay in."
But he wound up too far in the Hole.
THE LITERARY GROUP
hears next from
our ULM- returned colleague
Steve Pierce
telling us about
A P. I. D. that’s not Euclidean
Friday, October 25 1996 3 30PM BAM 261
Now, as we’re poised to elect
one guy and the other reject,
let’s recall our ideals
and ignore base appeals,
‘cept for those which, our perks, will protect.
The Literary Group
next hears
Steve Hui
tell us all about
Internal Set Theory
(an approach to non-standard analysis)
CHANGED TO
Wednesday November 6, 1996 3 30 PM BAM 261
If you want to know," What’s an internal set?",
you might look it up on the Internet.
But you won’t find it there,
so to shun being square,
be there; a nonstandard talk will you get!
The Literary Group
next hears from
D. Pathria
HNC Software Inc.
who will tell us about
THE CORRECT FORMULATION OF INTERMEDIATE BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
FOR RUNGE-KUTTA TIME INTEGRATION OF INITIAL BOUNDARY VALUE PROBLEMS
Friday November 15, 1996 3 30 PM BAM 261
This talk’s on the method of lines
and errors that cause engineer’s whines.
But we’ll see here a fix
using mathematical tricks
which Runge and Kutta’d think fine.
The Literary Group
welcomes the prodigal son
Marko Vuskovic
who returns to tell us about
The Mathematics of Robotics
Friday November 22, 1996 3 30 PM BAM 261
A Serbian general named Vladic,
is seeking an arm that’s robotic.
So he flew here to Marko
(with a stop off in Fargo)
but the arm salutes toasters, not Vladic.
The Literary Group
has the privelege of having
Bernie Marcus
come out of retirement long enough to tell us how to go about
Resolving the Loewenheim-Skolem "Paradox"
Friday December 6, 1996 3 30 PM BAM 261
Now that Bernie’s retired with his pets
he’s entranced with the theory of sets-
how a countable few
can be uncountable, too.
That’s as crazy as math ever gets.