On Saturday April 6, 2013 some 500 mathematicians, students, and friends attended the 20th Annual Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (HRUMC), hosted by Williams College, with keynote address by Princeton Professor Mangul Bhargava and over 200 other talks, most by students, in 19 parallel sessions. See the full program and the account in the Williams Record. Bhargava’s talk was followed by a celebratory lunch in Greylock.
On Saturday April 6, 2013 Williams College hosted the 20th Annual Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (HRUMC). One of the first conferences of its kind, HRUMC was founded by four local schools: Siena College, Skidmore College, Union College, and Williams College. It’s a one-day conference with talks for, and mostly by, undergraduates. Over the years, HRUMC has been lucky to have some fantastic keynote speakers, including John Conway, Ron Graham, Bob Devaney, Ken Ribet, and Carl Pomerance, just to name a few. This year, we are excited to hear from Manjul Bhargava (pictured) from Princeton University who will be speaking on “How likely is it for a polynomial to take on a square value?” Student talks are 15 minutes and cover a wide range of topics. While some of the talks may discuss research the student presenter has done as part of an REU or senior thesis, most of the talks are expository. Williams last hosted the conference in 2005. We had about 500 attendees, with over 150 talks. In the years since HRUMC began, other one-day mathematics conferences have sprung up around the country, many modelled on the HRUMC format. I was a freshman at Union College during the first year of HRUMC and attended the conference at Siena College. Two years later, as a junior, I gave a talk on “Even Primes” when Skidmore hosted. This was a fun topic that my professor had shared with me, and I still cover that topic when I teach number theory today. During my senior year, the conference was held at Williams, and that was the first time I set foot on this campus. Little did I know that I’d be back six years later as a faculty member! HRUMC is a terrific opportunity for students to share their excitement about mathematics, learn about myradia exciting topics they have not had the chance to encounter yet, and become part of the mathematics community. I’m very excited to still be a part of the HRUMC experience.
Allison Pacelli is Associate Professor of Mathematics at Williams College. You can sign up to give a 15-minute talk by March 4, 2013.
Here is a partial program, featuring the Williams speakers:
8:30-9:45 Registration and breakfast, Science Atrium
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3:00 – 3:35 PM – Coffee Break – Science Atrium
Algebra III – BSC 103 |
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( 2 ) | 4:20 PM | 4:35 PM | Hilbert’s Nullstellensatz: An Introduction to Algebraic Geometry Scott Sanderson, Williams College |
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Analysis III – TBL 112 |
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( 1 ) | 4:20 PM | 4:35 PM | Relation(ship) Advice: What does the marriage of mathematics and econonomics prove about your preferences? Ivan Badinski, Williams College |
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Foundations of Mathematics – BSC 107 |
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( 1 ) | 3:40 PM | 3:55 PM | Gödel’s First Incompleteness Theorem Benno Stein, Williams College |
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( 1 ) | 4:00 PM | 4:15 PM | Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem: Why This Talk Cannot Be Proved Timothy Brock, Williams College |
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( 1 ) | 4:20 PM | 4:35 PM | Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem Taylor Oddleifson, Williams College |
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( 1 ) | 4:40 PM | 4:55 PM | This Sentence Is False: Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems and What They Mean For You April Shen, Williams College |
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Graph Theory IIIB – TPL 205 |
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( 1 ) | 3:40 PM | 3:55 PM | The Fitch and Sankoff algorithms for plant phylogenies Eric Robinson, Williams College |
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( 1 ) | 4:00 PM | 4:15 PM | Lost in the Woods: Phylogenetic Trees, Splits, and Applications Sandra Shedd, Williams College |
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( 1 ) | 4:20 PM | 4:35 PM | Space of Phylogenetic Trees Tara Deonauth, Williams College |
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( 1 ) | 4:40 PM | 4:55 PM | Making the Connections Joy Jing, Williams College |
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Geometry III – TPL 113 |
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( 1 ) | 4:40 PM | 4:55 PM | Inversive Geometry and the Problem of Appolonius Gregory Kehne, Williams College |
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Knot Theory – TCL 123 |
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( 1 ) | 3:40 PM | 3:55 PM | How to Break Apart Giant Crossings Benjamin DeMeo, Williams College |
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( 1 ) | 4:00 PM | 4:15 PM | Triple Crossing Number as a Viable Knot Invariant Sean Sutherland, Williams College |
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( 2 ) | 4:20 PM | 4:35 PM | Examining the Splits in Skein Relations for Multi-Crossing Knots Samantha Petti, Williams College |
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Differential Equations II – Clark 205 |
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( 2 ) | 4:20 PM | 4:35 PM | Life: Discrete or Continuous? Nicholas Neumann-Chun, Williams College |
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Applied Mathematics IIIB – TCL 206 |
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( 1 ) | 3:40 PM | 3:55 PM | The Mathematics of Weightlifting Alan Felix, Williams College |
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( 1 ) | 4:40 PM | 4:55 PM | Mathematics in Tuning Benjamin Hoyle, Williams College |
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Probability IIIA – BSC Auditorium |
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( 1 ) | 3:40 PM | 3:55 PM | Fractals in Finance: Price Jumps and a Peculiar Smile Benjamin Seiler, Williams College |
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( 1 ) | 4:20 PM | 4:35 PM | The Two Envelopes Paradox: Is There a Correct Solution? Peter Watson, Williams College |
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( 1 ) | 4:40 PM | 4:55 PM | Chances of Crossing Paths in Manhattan Jieming Liu, Williams College |
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Probability IIIB – BSC 119 | |||||||||
( 1 ) | 3:40 PM | 3:55 PM | The Cookie Problem Jaclyn Porfilio, Williams College |
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( 1 ) | 4:00 PM | 4:15 PM | Mathemagic: What happens at the intersection between magic and Math? Kushatha Fanikiso, Williams College |
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