| Math Club/PME |
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| Math Club |
| Meeting Dates |
| Math Club meetings are held in AB105
at 12:15 p.m. |
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| Club News |
| The Math Club meets monthly for fun with math. The poster outside the Math Dept has the dates, times and locations of our meetings. Last year, we had guest speaker Myron Erickson, P.E. from the City of Wyoming. He spoke of the mathematics of water treatment, including a first order differential equation. Our best attendance was a government speaker: Vonda Vantill visited us and spoke of the structure and future of Social Security. We had a room full of math and business students, plus some professors. |
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Our club president returns for a second term of office. Amanda Shuman is setting up meeting times and topics with her executive officers. The first speaker is our own Laura Shuman who will discuss her summer research in Dynamical Systems at Wayne State. |
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| There must be something about being
Math Club President because our last three have had some
good math rewards in their lives recently. Former pres.
Sara Schmidt (Koster) scored a job with the Dept of Defense.
Former pres. Paul T. Wood has passed the first five Actuarial
Exams and he's with Gabriel, Roeder, Smith and Co. in
Chicago. Val Kunde, won a prestigious Miriam Schaefer
scholarship. Past president, Jeanne Gilewski, is in med school having completed her triple major of math, chemistry
and biology at AQ. |
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| Our goals for the year: attendance
at the MiCTM in October, the MAA sectional in May and
a student speaker at the next MathFest. |
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| Math Club Projects |
| We have a series of images of mostly math topics, done stereoscopically. We use AutoDesk's 3DStudio to set up virtual cameras viewing a mesh object similar to the way a person's two eyes would view the object. Using a stereoscopic viewer, one can then fool the brain into thinking the object exists and is being viewed in depth, just the way a Viewmaster works. The images below require a device to project one image onto each eye separately, unless the viewer is willing to try to focus eyes separately until the images become one. Such viewing is possible, with practice. To see a page which has some excellent stereoscopic images and has free-viewing helpers, try 3dArtist. |
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For the easiest results, get the $2 viewer (stock number 2018, $3 shipping) from Reel3D. Then, print the images you want to use, cut them out and place them next to each other while looking through the viewer. You will soon see the intended stereoscopic image. The viewer also works on the computer screen for some people; but using prints is best. |
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The image pair at left is a five-crossing knot built in a box. (There are some trivial crossings present. The knot is a "paramecium" knot, as described by Jozef Przytycki of The George Washington University.) |
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| The two pairs at right are from a model of a finite geometry. The model has 10 points, 10 lines and illustrates Desargue's Theorem. (The purple line is the polar of the lowest blue point.) |
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| Pi Mu Epsilon |
| Membership Requirements |
| Neither a math major or minor is required to be in PME; but taking the calculus sequence and beyond usually means one of these has happened. Membership is most difficult at the sophomore level, where the prospective member must be a math major with at least three math courses taken, including Calculus I. The sophomore must have a 4.0 in math and be in the top fourth of that student's class. |
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| For students above sophomore level, the requirements are more adaptable. Four math courses including the calculus sequence is the big hurdle because the calculus sequence is three courses long. The prospective member must have a B average in math and must be in the top third of the class.One further requirement for all prospective PME members: you must be a Math Club member as well. The Math Club contains the honor society as well as providing participants with mathematical activities outside the classroom. To be a member of the Math Club, all you have to do is attend three Math Club meetings! So, for you successful math students at Aquinas College, check it out! You might just be able to increase your mathematics enjoyment, boost your resume and have some fun all at the same time. |
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| Learn more about the installation of PME |
