Thomas Zaslavsky
Teaching Schedule
- Math 304-06 (Fall 2023): Linear Algebra
- Our class home page.
Textbook: David Lay et al., Linear Algebra and Its Applications, sixth edition.
- Math 580A (Fall 2023): Matroid Theory and Biased Graphs
- Class home page.
Textbook: James Oxley, Matroid Theory, second edition.
-
Quotations of the Month
Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are
distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.
–John Maynard Keynes, in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.
In "The Roaring Trumpet", part of Harold Shea's introduction to the Norse gods is a flyting between Heimdall and Loki in which Heimdall utters the immortal line "All insults are
untrue. I state facts."
-- Adapted from Wikipedia, "Flyting", citing the first story in The Complete Compleat Enchanter (1989) by L.
Sprague deCamp and Fletcher Pratt.
Past quotations of the month.
Research
Other Places, On and Off Site
- Fraktur (German) letters, printed and handwritten forms, from Sheila MacIntyre and Edith Witte, German-English Mathematical Vocabulary, Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh and London, 1956; second ed. 1966. Higher resolution (2 MB).
-
Combinatorics Seminar
-
Combinatorics News
- Gian-Carlo Rota (Our Hero!)
Beautifully written biography at the National Academy of Sciences.
- eXtreme Combinatorics: Design theory schedules the XFL season. (February 3, 2001.)
- A Hat Problem: It sounds like a parlor game -- but it's mathematical coding theory. (April 10, 2001.)
- Our professors have their own number.
- The End of a Reign in Graph Theory: W.T. Tutte Dies, May 2, 2002.
- Archimedes did combinatorics 2200 years ago! Read all about it!
- Sphere packing: Solved at last? or, What is a proof, really?
- A statistical analysis of The New Yorker's fiction. (Not combinatorics, but it's an unusual senior thesis!)
- Obituary of Frank Harary, who liked to be called "Mr. Graph Theory".
- A book on probability that sounds like fascinating fun, full of anecdotes and math: CHANCES ARE... Adventures in Probability, by Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan (New York Times review).
- Was Pythagoras really a mathematician at all? Read the controversy in the London Review of Books: "Other Lives", by M.F. Burnyeat.
- The New York Times discovers signed graphs! Actually, it's the math column by Steven Strogatz (Cornell) called "The Enemy of My Enemy".
-
African Mathematics, Multicultural Math, and Math Education
-
Historical
Best Viewed With Any Browser