April 6, 2013 – Purple Comet! Problems and Student Presentations

Join us in the first hour to hear MMC students present some of their favorite problems and mathematical concepts.  In the second hour we will work on problems from the Purple Comet! contest and talk about this exciting opportunity to compete with other students around the world.

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February 16, 2013 – Dr. Branislav Kisačanin – “A Tour of Mathematical Functions II”

In a follow up lecture on mathematical functions, we will explore more stories and problems related to polynomials, trigonometric functions, and functional equations. Furthermore, we will dive deeper into the original historical context of functions – curves such as cycloids, cardioids, catenaries, circles, ellipses, hyperbolas, parabolas. Finally, we will try to understand why exponential and trigonometric functions turn up in solutions of so many fundamental problems in math, physics, and engineering. Come and learn with us!

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February 9, 2013 – Dr. Tatiana Shubin

This coming Saturday, the Metroplex Math Circle is very fortunate to have Dr. Tatiana Shubin, one of the leaders in the global math circle movement speak to our circle!  We will post more details on the topic of her talk, but no opportunity to hear Dr. Shubin speak should be missed.

In addition to being the Director of the San Jose Math Circle, Tatiana Shubin (shubin[at]math.sjsu.edu) won the All-Siberian Math Olympiad when she was in the seventh grade. Her B.S. is from Moscow State University (Russia), and her PhD is from UC Santa Barbara. She served for 6 years as the California State Director of AMC-8, then became a co-founder of the Bay Area Math Adventures (BAMA), and has been on the BAMA steering committee ever since.

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AMC 8 Preparation Handouts

On October 20th Dr. Titu Andreescu spoke to the Metroplex Math Circle at UT Dallas and shared a number of interesting problems.  The video below will give people some sense of what a math circle session can be.  We are still experimenting with our video and streaming technology so we appreciate your patience and are grateful for your tips to improve the quality of these videos which will be posted to our YouTube channel.

Please note that every Metroplex Math Circle speaker is encouraged to choose the topic and format that best suits their style and passions.  This means that every session is somewhat different and you are encouraged to read the description of each session posted here or on our FaceBook and Google+ pages when you make your decision to attend.

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November 3, 2012 – Dr. Titu Andreescu – More Interesting Problems

We are very fortunate this week to have Dr. Titu Andreescu return to present some more challenging problems and strategies for solving them.

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October 20, 2012 – Dr. Titu Andreescu – AMC 8 Preparation

The AMC 8 is an important contest to introduce younger students (grades 8 and below) to problem solving and discrete mathematics topics.  Even very young students should begin working with these problems and participate in the AMC 8 in as many years as possible to be well prepared for the AMC 10 and 12 whose results are often requested by elite universities as part of the admissions process.

Metroplex Math Circle attendees are particularly fortunate to have Dr. Andreescu lead us through a discussion of some of his favorite AMC 8 problems.  Dr. Andreescu is the former director of the AMC and the former coach of the US International Mathematical Olympiad team whose members are ultimately chosen from the very best participants in the AMC sponsored contests.

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2012 CIE-DFW Presentation

If you found Metroplex Math Circle through the parent presentation at the 2012 CIE-DFW MathComp/MathFun you can find the link to the presentation here.

If you have any questions we weren’t able to take during the presentation feel free to post them below.

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March 3, 2012 – Dr. Titu Andreescu – “More Contest Problems”

With the AMC 10 and 12 contests behind us, some students will be preparing for the AIME while many will be working hard to improve their scores next year.  Both groups will not want to miss Dr. Titu Andreescu this weekend as he presents more of his favorite problems and solutions.

Titu Andreescu received his Ph.D. from the West University of Timisoara, Romania. The topic of his dissertation was “Research on Diophantine Analysis and Applications.” Professor Andreescu currently teaches at The University of Texas at Dallas. He is past chairman of the USA Mathematical Olympiad, served as director of the MAA American Mathematics Competitions (1998–2003), coach of the USA International Mathematical Olympiad Team (IMO) for 10 years (1993–2002), director of the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program (1995–2002), and leader of the USA IMO Team (1995–2002). In 2002 Titu was elected member of the IMO Advisory Board, the governing body of the world’s most prestigious mathematics competition. Titu co-founded in 2006 and continues as director of the AwesomeMath Summer Program (AMSP). He received the Edyth May Sliffe Award for Distinguished High School Mathematics Teaching from the MAA in 1994 and a “Certificate of Appreciation” from the president of the MAA in 1995 for his outstanding service as coach of the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program in preparing the US team for its perfect performance in Hong Kong at the 1994 IMO. Titu’s contributions to numerous textbooks and problem books are recognized worldwide.

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Problems and Solutions from Roberto Bosch Cabrera

Our first speaker of the semester, Roberto Bosch Cabrera, has generously provided us with a set of problems and solutions.  The concepts behind these problems should be very helpful to our students preparing for the next set of AMC contests.  In addition, the art of writing excellent articulations like Roberto’s is critical to advancement in mathematics and is applicable to a variety of other fields.

Here are the first two problems and the solutions which you will find in the attached Adobe Acrobat File (pdf).

 

 

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February 18, 2012 – Dr. Branislav Kisačanin – “Introduction to Graph Theory”

February 18, 2012 - Dr. Branislav Kisačanin - “Introduction to Graph Theory”

Graph theory was born when Leonhard Euler solved the Seven Bridges of Koenigsberg problem and has since grown into a mathematical discipline with beautiful theoretical results and with applications in disciplines like theory of dynamic systems, electrical engineering, computer vision, neuroscience, and social networking.

In this lecture we will learn about the fascinating early history of the graph theory, discuss Eulerian and Hamiltonian paths, node and edge coloring, and look at other important properties of graphs, such as planarity. We will even work on several problems like this one from the Sixth IMO (Moscow, 1964):

Each of 17 students talked with every other student. Each pair of students talked about one of three different topics. Prove that there are three students that talked about the same topic among themselves.

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