January 23, 2010 – Dr. Titu Andreescu – “A Few Brain Teasers”
Dr. Andreescu will kick off the spring session of Metroplex Math Circle with some of his favorite lecture topics and problems.
January 30, 2010 – Dr. Razvan Gelca – “Check the Extremes”
Dr. Gelca will show how to solve mathematical problems by looking at the largest or the smallest element.
February 5, 2010 – Dr. Dick Gibbs – “Partitioning” and “Cycle Structure of Permutations”
I) Partitioning: lines by points; planes by lines; 3-space by planes; etc. There are some nice patterns to be observed here. There’s also the counting of regions formed by chords determined by n points on a circle — it’s (somehow) related to the 4-dimensional partitioning problem.
II) Cycle structure of permutations: lots of counting (and probability) problems here. For example: how many perms. have a given cycle structure? (pretty well-known); for how many perms. does a given pair, triple, etc. occur in the same cycle? (not so well-known — to me anyway!)..
February 13, 2010 – No Math Circle – Fort Worth Chapter Mathcounts
February 20, 2010 – No Math Circle – Dallas Chapter Mathcounts
February 27, 2010 – Dr. Jonathan Kane – Adding Fractions the Wrong Way
Dr. Kane will discuss combining of fractions a/b and c/d by (a+c)/(b+d) to see what happens. Sometimes this is what is done when combining groups of results and leads to Simpson’s paradox. This also leads to very interesting behaviors when a teacher wants to drop the lowest grade from a collection of grades not all worth the same amount. This talk will also touch on algorithms such as greedy algorithms where Dr. Kane will show cases where it works and cases where it does not work.
March 6, 2010 – Dr. Zoran Sunic– Space Filling Curves
Dr. Sunic will provide several examples of space filling curves (such as Peano, Hilbert, and Moore curve), along with a general strategy that lies behind these constructions and applications to computer science.
March 13, 2010 – No Math Circle – UTD Spring Break
March 20, 2010 – No Math Circle – UTD Spring Break
March 27, 2010 – Dr. Zvezdelina Stankova – “Attacking Plane Geometry with Bare Hands or with Mathematical Armor?”
In the classic book of “Alice in Wonderland” many strange things happen that are left unexplained by the mathematician author Lewis Carroll. Similarly, in this math circle session at UT Dallas, reflections will “mystically” become rotations and rotations will turn into translations! Is this possible and mathematically sound? Come to this talk to find out what happened just a month ago at the Bay Area Math Olympiad and how three different brilliant solutions to the same geometry problem were created by student participants. If you want more preparation on the topic, visit the UT Arlington math circle session “Medians Surrender at the Olympics” on March 25, Thursday, 7-9pm, for another geometry session given by the same speaker.
April 3, 2010 – No Math Circle – Easter Holiday
April 10, 2010 – Dr. Titu Andreescu – “One hundred ideas in ten geometry problems”
April 17, 2010 – Dr. Titu Andreescu – “One hundred ideas in ten geometry problems…Continued”
*** Metroplex Math Circle has completed its semester. Please join us again in the Fall of 2010 ***
Fall 2009
September 19, 2009 – Dr. Titu Andreescu – “Back to Math”
Dr. Andreescu will kick off the 2009-2010 session of Metroplex Math Circle with some of his favorite lecture topics and problems.
September 26, 2009 – Brian Basham – “Conditional Probability and Graph Theory”
Description of the lecture: A quest to defeat the cannibals that inhabit my favorite math problem. Our journey will start with conditional probability and what it has to with medical diagnoses. We will travel into graph theory and learn how turning people into points can make problems much easier to solve. Finally we discover a concept in computer science which will help us claim victory over the cannibals and keep us from becoming dinner.
October 3, 2009 – Dr. Titu Andreescu – “More Math with Dr. Andreescu”
On October 3rd Dr. Andreescu will continue his talk from September 19th with more problems and strategies that will prove very useful to students preparing for upcoming AMC competitions.
October 10, 2009 – Dr. Frank Wang – “Beauty and Mathematics”
Dr. Wang will perform demonstrations to illustrate what he believes to be a higher purpose of mathematicians — to find order and pattern in virtually any situation, no matter how dis-ordered and random it may seem. This talk is suitable for anyone who has a knowledge of basic algebra.
October 17, 2009 – Christopher Maier – “Coloring Arguments and Combinatorics”
Mr. Maier is going to talk about coloring arguments and some of their applications to combinatorial problems, especially problems from the theory of plane tilings, but also from knot theory, probability, and some popular puzzles. Is it possible to cover an eight-by-eight inch chessboard with two-by-one inch dominos? Is it possible to cover the remainder with dominos? If so, how, and if not, why not?
October 24, 2009 – Dr. Dorin Andrica – “The Triangle Inequality”
Please note this lecture will be held in room 2.311 in the same building.
October 31, 2009 – Dr. Dorin Andrica – “More on the Triangle Inequality”
Please note this lecture will be held in room 2.311 in the same building.
November 7, 2009 – Dr. Harold Reiter – “Exploding Dots”
November 14, 2009 – Ivan Matic – “TBA”
November 21, 2009 – No Metroplex Math Circle – Thanksgiving
November 28, 2009 – No Metroplex Math Circle – Thanksgiving
December 5, 2009 – Dr. Titu Andreescu – “Sums and Products”
Don’t miss our last Math Circle of the 2009 Fall season!
I'm going to talk to the Math Circle about coloring arguments and some of their applications to combinatorial problems, especially problems from the theory of plane tilings, but also from knot theory, probability, and some popular puzzles. A famous example: Is it possible to cover an eight-by-eight inch chessboard with two-by-one inch dominos? Yes. If you remove two opposite corner squares from the board, is it possible to cover the remainder with dominos? If so, how, and if not, why not?
Metroplex Math Circle 
Hi,
I would like to begin bringing in my son Karthik to the Metroplex Math Club events. I realize the 1st session for this Fall begins 9/18 [September 19, 2009 – Dr. Titu Andreescu – “Back to Math”].
where is the venue for this meeting, and timings?
Thanks,
Prabhu Sankaran
email: prabhu_sankaran@yahoo.com
Prabhu,
We have our new schedule posted here
https://metroplexmathcircle.wordpress.com/schedule-2010-2011/
And the first meeting is indeed this Saturday. Instructions on the time and meeting place are available here:
https://metroplexmathcircle.wordpress.com/about/directions-and-times/
What a plreause to meet someone who thinks so clearly
I keep hearing that many European automakers are reluctant to bring diesels into the US market because of difficulties clearing emmission standards. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the emission standards in most W. European countries stiffer than those in the US?