Temple Math Club is an active club within Temple University, which organizes weekly events on Thursdays 5:00 PM to 6 PM. The meeting room is Wachman Hall 617. Any undergraduate, graduate, faculty, or staff member may attend these meetings and collaborations with other organizations are always welcome!
The mission of the Math Club at Temple University is to build a scholarly community of students and faculty with a passion for mathematics and to popularize this field through a series of activities promoting appreciation and understanding of the role mathematics plays in science, nature, technology, and human culture. To join or enjoy the Math Club one does not need to be the next Euler or Archimedes; one must simply have the interest and ability to find the fun in logic.
We invite speakers (undergraduates, graduates, and faculty) from the University and surrounding institutions to present on various mathematics and applied science fields with the hope to inspire our math, science, engineering majors and all other math enthusiasts. We also offer professional development opportunities within the field of mathematics. We organize events outside of campus, such as watching Math/Science movies, and with other organizations.
Club officers:
- President: Christopher Heitmann
- Vice President: Tommy Pham
- Secretary: Dylan Heathcote
- Treasurer:
Faculty Advisors:
- Prof. Andy Eisenberg
Director of Undergraduate Studies:
- Prof. Maria Lorenz
Graduate Student Advisor:
- Henry Brown
You may contact the club through the president, Christopher Heitmann, at tun50098@temple.edu
Weekly challenge problems -->
Thursday August 31, 2023 at 17:00, WH617
The first meeting of the Temple Math Club this semester will consist, as usual, of math puzzles and games. And of course there will be free pizza!
The meeting will be on Thursday from 5 pm – 6 pm in Wachman 617.
Thursday September 7, 2023 at 17:00, WH617
At this week’s meeting of the Temple Math Club, I’ll be giving an introduction to Python. I’ll introduce the basic syntax and use some previous Weekly Challenge coding problems as examples. If you’d like to program along, I’d recommend installing Python 3 (at https://www.python.org/) ahead of time. I’d also recommend installing an IDE (I’m a fan of PyCharm, which is freely available: https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/). And, of course, there will be free pizza!
The talk will be on Thursday from 5 pm – 6 pm in Wachman 617.
Thursday September 14, 2023 at 17:00, WH617
Undergraduate research in mathematics
This meeting of the Math Club will feature an information session about how undergraduates can get involved in research in the math department. Any student interested in research but not sure how to get started should consider attending. And, of course, there will be free pizza!
The meeting will be tomorrow from 5 pm – 6 pm in Wachman 617.
Thursday September 21, 2023 at 17:00, WH 617
Meet employees from the Advanced Concepts Lab
This week’s meeting of the Temple Math Club will feature employees from the Advanced Concepts Lab about their work and the relevant mathematical topics (cryptography, statistics, discrete math, and more). This will be a good meeting to attend for any students interested to see the uses of math in industry. And, of course, there will be free pizza!
Thursday September 28, 2023 at 17:00, WH617
Need a break from studying for midterms? Join us for a Math Club game night! We will have several math-related board games to choose from, but feel free to bring your favorite game. As always, there will be free pizza!
Thursday October 5, 2023 at 17:00, WH 617
This week we'll have a brief introduction to LaTeX, the typesetting language that most math and science books/papers are published in. It is a useful skill to have as math/science major, so this will be a great opportunity to get started if you haven't already. If you'd like to TeX along with the TalK, I would recommend making an account (for free!) over at Overleaf.com. As always, there will be free pizza!
Thursday October 12, 2023 at 17:00, WH 617
Movie Night - Outlier: The Story of Katherine Johnson
This week we will watch the documentary “Outlier: The Story of Katherine Johnson”. The short film follows the story of Katherine Johnson, an African American woman who pushed boundaries in mathematics and made crucial contributions to space travel. As always, there will be free pizza!
Thursday October 19, 2023 at 17:00, WH 617
Math puzzles are back! Join us to solve some fun problems, socialize, and enjoy free pizza! This time, there is a twist. Anyone who can solve a problem on the board will receive a (possibly sweet) prize!
Thursday October 26, 2023 at 17:00, WH 617
Getting our feet wet with Navier-Stokes and a nice integral bound
In this talk, we investigate an integral bound lemma used to prove decay rates for solutions to the Navier-Stokes partial differential equation system with rough data. The Navier-Stokes system is a 3D momentum equation which governs the movement of viscous incompressible fluids. After some introduction to the system, and giving some important results and properties, we will dive into proving a necessary integral bound, utilizing only basic calculus. This proof should be accessible to any who are interested in attending. We will then discuss how this lemma is central to the decay rates proof and an interesting result on uniqueness for the system.
Thursday November 2, 2023 at 17:00, WH 617
The Awesome Averaging Power of Heat in Geometry – Andrew Cooper
Senior Lecturer of Mathematics Andrew Cooper from the University of Pennsylvania will give a talk on using the heat equation to prove geometric uniformization theorems. As a main example: the Jordan Curve Theorem asserts that any simple closed curve divides the plane into two regions, one essentially the unit disk and one essentially its complement. The heat equation gives an explicit proof -- one which actually constructs a deformation of the given curve into the unit circle. I will discuss this proof in some detail, as well as giving an indication of how other geometric heat equations can tell us about what possible shapes exist.
Thursday November 9, 2023 at 17:00, WH 617
New Results in Fixed-Point Theory
This week undergraduates Elizabeth Abt-Fraioli and Christopher Heitmann will present new results in the research of fixed-point theory.Advised by Professor Jeromy Sivek, both have been examining the conditions that yield non-expansive maps without a fixed point. Liz will discuss a new complex-valued variation of Alspach’s famous map and will show that it is fixed-point free and non-expansive. Christopher will prove a general theorem regarding fixed-point free and contractive maps and show a new example of fixed-point free and contractive iterate series of a fixed-point free isometry.
Thursday November 16, 2023 at 17:00, WH 617
This week will consist of a variety of topics-chosen by you! Pick any math-related concept, video, picture, etc. that you want to share or discuss, and we will take a look! This will be a low-pressure, relaxed meeting where we will discuss math and enjoy free pizza! Fill out the form in the announcement if you have an idea ahead of time. Otherwise, we can take suggestions on Thursday.
Thursday November 30, 2023 at 17:00, WH 617
Construction of Reals using Dedekind Cuts - Antonio Vinagre
In this talk, we will discuss one construction of the real numbers using Dedekind Cuts. With this construction first published in 1872 by Richard Dedekind, we will use "cuts" of the rational numbers to form a set that we will show has order, the Least Upper Bound Property, and is a field that contains the rational numbers as a subfield. We will then realize this set of cuts as the set of real numbers.
Thursday December 7, 2023 at 17:00, WH 617
How to slay hydras and count past infinity - Krishan Canzius
The Hydra is a many-headed monster from Greek mythology. Every time a hero cuts a head off the Hydra several more will grow back in its place. In this talk we'll model the Hydra as a certain kind of graph, and we'll model a battle with the Hydra as a single-player mathematical game. The main question we'll answer is: Can we win the hydra game, and if so which strategies will guarantee a win? In order to answer this question, we'll need to introduce the ordinals: a number system which extends the natural numbers and allows us to count past infinity.