Japheth Wood

Month: November 2012

  • Kevin’s Books


    One of the great friends that I made in my time at Vanderbilt University was Kevin Blount. Kevin knew all the graduate students and professors, and often hosted dinners and movies at his nearby apartment.
    Kevin ended up writing his Ph.D. dissertation On the Structure of Residuated Lattices with Constantine Tsinakis, and moved on to an academic position at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut.

    Kevin passed away on May 30, 2006, which surprised all of us. I had just moved back East, and so one of the first trips was attending his memorial service at Sacred Heart.

    At the end of 2008, Kevin’s wife, Xiaoyu, gave me Kevin’s math books. After some brief discussions with some mathematical colleagues, the books ended up being stored in my attic. I’m now offering these books to those who knew Kevin. I am sure that Kevin would have been happy to have his math books shared among his friends and colleagues, and I hope that this will help keep Kevin’s memory alive in the mathematical community.

    If you are interested in some of the books below, leave a comment or contact me privately. I’ll send them your way. (Pardon the typos – I’ll correct those as they are noticed).

    Kevin’s Math Books

    1. Albert, Introduction to Algebraic Theories, Matt Insall
    2. Artin, Geometric Algebra, Tracts in Mathematics Number 3 – John Raymonda
    3. Baumslag and Chandler, Group Theory
    4. Bennet, Affine and Projective Geometry
    5. Bjarni Jonsson, Topics in Universal Algebra, Lecture Notes, Vanderbilt University, 1969-70 – John Snow
    6. Bollobas, Graph Theory, GTM 63, Matt Insall
    7. Bond/Keane, An Introduction to Abstract Mathematics, Instructors
    8. Bondy and Murty, Graph Theory with Applications, Matt Insall
    9. Bonele, Non-Euclidean Geometry, Dover
    10. Bourbaki, Elements of Mathematics, General Topology, Part 1, Addison Wesley
    11. Burnside, Theory of Groups of Finite Order, Princeton
    12. Curry, Foundations of Mathematical Logic, Dover
    13. Dieudonne, Introduction to the Theory of Formal Groups, Dekker
    14. Gruenberg and Weir, Linear Geometry, Van Nostrand
    15. Hodel, An Introduction to Mathematical Logic – Jan Gałuszka
    16. Hall, The Theory of Groups, Macmillan
    17. Springer, Geometry and Analysis of Projective Spaces
    18. Sternberg, Lectures on Differential Geometry, Prentice Hall
    19. Hennie, Introduction to Computability
    20. Lang, Introduction to Algebraic Geometry, Tracts in Mathematics Number 5 – John Raymonda
    21. Hochschild, Introduction to Affine Algebraic Groups
    22. Nagaia, Local Rings, Tracts in Mathematics Number 13
    23. Spanier, Algebraic Topology
    24. Lipschitz, Discrete Mathematics, Schaum McGraw Hill
    25. Solutuion Manual for, Brooks/Cole
    26. Curtis Clark, An Approach to Graph Achievement Games: Ultimately Economical Graphs
    27. Hungerford, Algebra, Springer 73 – John Snow
    28. Mendelson, Introduction to Mathematical Logic, 3e, Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole Mathematics Series
    29. Moore, Elementary General Topology, Prentice-Hall
    30. Mitchell, Theory of Categories, Academic Press, Matheamtics XVII
    31. Herken, The Universal Turing Machine, Oxford – John Snow
    32. ??, Fundamental Concepts of Algebra, Addison Wesley
    33. Kelley, General Topology, Van NostrandO??, Theory of LIE Groups, Princeton
    34. Munkres, Elements of Algebraic Topology
    35. Sawyer, A Geometric Approach to Abstract Algebra, Freeman
    36. McCoy, Rings and Ideals – John Raymonda
    37. Smullyan, First-Order Logic, Dover
    38. Veblen and Young, Projective Geometry, Volume 1
    39. Gelfond, Transcendental & Algebraic Numbers, Dover – John Snow
    40. Freese & McKenzie, Commutator Theory for Congruence Modular Varieties – Jonathan Farley
    41. Davey & Priestley, Introduction to Lattice and Order, Cambridge – John Snow
    42. An Algebraic Introduction to Matheamtical Logic, GTM 52 – John Snow
    43. Categories for the Working Mathematician, GTM 5 – John Snow
    44. Manin, A Course in Mathematical Logic, GTM 53
    45. Burris/Sankappanavar, A Course in Universal Algebra, GTM 78 – John Snow
    46. Hirsch, Differential Topology, GTM 33
    47. Gaum, Elements of Point Set Topology, Prentice-Hall
    48. Bourbaki, Elements of Mathematics, General Topology Part 2
    49. Eisenberg, Topology, Holt Rinehart Winston
    50. Pareigis, Categories and Functors
    51. Kaplansky, Set Theory and Metric Spaces – John Raymonda
    52. McKenzie, McNulty, Taylor, Algebras, Lattices, Varieties, Volume I, Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole Matheamtics Series, – Jonathan Farley
    53. Monk, Mathematical Logic, GTM 37 – John Snow
    54. Lightstone, Symbolic Logic and the REAL NUMBER SYSTEM – John Snow
    55. The Essentials of Logic
    56. Halmos & Givant, Logic as Algebra – Jan Gałuszka
    57. Jacobson, Lectures in Abstract Algebra, I Basic Concepts, Van Nostrand – John Raymonda
    58. Husain, Introduction to Topological Groups, Matt Insall
    59. Tarski, Introduction to Logic and to the methodology of deductive sciences, Dover
    60. Church, Introduction to Mathematical Logic, Princeton – John Snow
    61. Rosenbloom, an introduction to Symbolic Logic, Dover
    62. Krantz, How to Teach Mathematics: a personal perspective
    63. Thomas Rishel, Teaching First – A Guide for New Mathematicians, MAA
    64. Hobby and McKenzie, The Structure of Finite Algebras, AMS Comm 76, – Jonathan Farley

  • AP Classes Are a Scam

    I heard about the following Atlantic article from @stevenstrogatz : October 13th, AP Classes Are a Scam which I found quite interesting.

    I thought much the same in those years when I taught a lot of freshman Calculus. My main observations were that

    1. Most students who had taken AP Calculus in High School had to take the Calculus sequence anyway, and resented that they had to essentially repeat a course.
    2. Students who had not taken AP Calculus in High School felt intimidated that they were in class with students who had, and felt completely inadequate.
    3. As a result, the AP students barely worked at all, since they had a superficial knowledge of Calculus, while the non-AP students worked very hard.
    4. Since AP Calculus is not college level Calculus, the effects were clear by midterms: the AP students had fallen too far behind, and the non-AP students were learning the material, and starting to enjoy it.
    5. I suspected that there were other, successful AP students, who weren’t in my class, and never took another math class in their lives. Thus, some of the most enthusiastic math students at the high school level were diverted out of the math major, since they saw Calculus as the final math class.

    So why did I come away with the impression that AP Calculus, presented as the highest level math class one could take in college, was essentially a terminal math class, serving to prevent bright and hard-working high school math kids from continuing in mathematics?

    I’ve come to understand this more in the contrast between acceleration and enrichment. Our educational system emphasizes acceleration, and works hard to move kids rapidly through material. There are a lot of incentives for this, like granting college credit. An alternative is to enrich the curriculum, and allow students to go deeper into the material.

    When I was in high school, I used math team to enrich my studies, as well as my own mathematical reading of fantastic authors like Martin Gardner. I don’t think I ever earned an academic credit for this enrichment, but it was profoundly enjoyable, and directed me into mathematics. I did benefit from acceleration as well, but my most memorable mathematical moments were from some inspirational math enrichment.

    So, why do we bother with AP courses? I think our students would benefit greatly if a similar amount of resources were invested into academic enrichment. I’d love to see after-school math circles, math clubs and math teams in every school, and I can imagine similar enrichment in other subjects.

  • Math Formula Poetry Slam

    Last December, I got to meet Daniel, aka Jarabe Del Sól, a poet from the Readnex Poetry Squad. He showed me in his notebook where he had written all sorts of arcane symbols and characters, perhaps from undiscovered alphabets. I got to fill up a few pages of his notebook with math symbolism off the top of my head, and then he proceeded to respond with a poetic response and free verse. This was a lot of fun, and a few days later, he sent me photos of what I had written. If you click on the photos below, you can see what Jarabe and I wrote, a math formula poetry slam! Play this track while you’re looking, for the full experience.

    11 If gravity could fly one 64