Newsy tidbits

Now that I’ve finally finished that ridiculously long Pascal’s Wager post (it’s been in the works for over a week, due to both the length and the fact that I’ve been insanely busy), I can give some news!

First of all, it’s official: I’ll be attending SUNY Albany for grad school next year (mathematics PhD)! I’m very excited–there are some great people there, students and professors alike. Also, I’ll get to stay in the Capitol Region for five more years, which is great because I love the area, and besides, now I won’t have to move very far. What will I study? Well, I don’t know yet, but I am assured that that’s okay. At the moment discrete math and topology are warring for my heart.

Secondly, the Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics Conference last week went great. I gave my 10-minute talk on a paper I’d read about applying topology to a certain area of robotics, and got to discuss knot theory and P vs. NP and all sorts of fun things with the students and professors there. Played tic-tac-toe on a torus, solved tic-tac-toe on a torus (it’s a win for the first player, even though the first player doesn’t actually get a choice of first move), looked at a tiling of the 3-sphere by dodecahedrons, and attended a performance of Calculus: the Musical. (The show was very well done and quite fun, but it was clearly intended for a different audience, one that didn’t already know all the calculus they presented and more. Still, math and musical theatre–who could ask for a better way to spend an evening?)

The conference was held at St. Lawrence University this year, meaning a four-hour drive through the Adirondacks for us and most of the participating schools. So the night before, I made the Sierpinski cookies that Isabel drew my attention to, to share with my fellow Union students and professors. They came out great, although it took several hours to roll out the dough, and they were a huge hit! One of the professors told everyone he met about them, and so for much of the conference, people were coming up to me and asking about them.

That’s about all for now, although I still have more things coming up in the next few weeks, most notably Steinmetz Day this Friday, and the Albany Tulip Festival the next weekend. Somewhere in there I have Parallel Computing homework to do, paperwork to send in to SUNY Albany, and I don’t know what else. However, I have high hopes that I’ll get a few blog posts done, including the last installment of Hypergame, which I have been promising for way too long now. Somewhere in there I’ll get out and enjoy the spring flowers, too!