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What’s ν?News from the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science

Mount St Mary’s University16300 Old Emmitsburg Rd, Emmitsburg, MD 21727

http://www.msmary.edu ♦ [email protected] ♦ 301.447.5291

Issue No. 3 May 2007

I’m very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;in short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of the modern MajorGeneral. – W.S. Gilbert in the Pirates of Penzance

Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. – Edsger Dijkstra

Contents

Bill’s Valedictory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Computer Pioneer, Bill O’Toole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3MAA Student Chapter Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4ACM Student Chapter Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Dr. Melanie Butler hired as new assistant professor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5Clare Luce Boothe Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5Research Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5What I do . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Euler Birthday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7Students elected to Pi Mu Epsilon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8My Adventure on Jeopardy! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Lecture Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9Mount Graduates for 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Mathematical Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Jokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Bicentennial Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

What’s ν? May 2007

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Hello, everyone.

This is the third issue of the department newslet-ter. Although I asked for announcements of mar-riages, births, jobs, and other news, I have notreceived a single submission. I guess there are twooptions. You are either staying single, childless,and unemployed or you are too shy to write. SinceI know many of you to be anything but shy I amconcerned! , Seriously, please send me news. Youcan also be creative and send an entire article.

E-mail if you would prefer to receive electroniccopies of future newsletters. In fact, I would en-courage you to do so; it saves me duplicating costs,is good for the environment, and appears in color.

I would very much like your feedback on what ishere and what is not here. Please keep in touch.

– Fred Portier ([email protected])

Bill’s Valedictory

By Bill O’Toole

“Why would someone spend his wholelife doing something he couldn’t wait toget away from?” - George Carlin, on thesubject of retirement.

Well, because he loved doing it, perhaps? Actu-ally, I cannot say that I couldn’t wait to get awayfrom it, but it is time to shift gears.

I have taught math and computer science coursesfor 41 years at the Mount. In addition, I taught onecourse in Modern (Relativistic) Physics, one MBAcourse (the old MBA 507, on the use of the com-puter in business forecasting), and five years’ worthof Freshman Seminar over the years. The physicscourse was taught at the request of the physics pro-fessor, the late Dr. John Richards, when he wantedit offered but couldn’t fit it in his schedule. It wasJohn who hired me in 1966, and he was my firstchair because math and computer science were partsof the Department of Science.

Other chairmen I served under were Drs. BillMeredith and James Thomas. When we became thenew Department of Math and Computer Science in1982, Dr. John August was named its first chair. Iwas the second chair for six years, followed by ourcurrent chairman, Dr. Fred Portier. I have had theprivilege of working with many brilliant and harmo-nious colleagues over these 41 years. In addition tothose already named, there were Tom Ryan (now in

the Business Department), Brook Stephens, StevenAndrilli, Dick Borst, Bob Lambdin, Jim Roche, NancyLewis, Theresa Francis, Will Shipley, Dan Russo,and others, plus too many part-time adjuncts toname. Besides Fred, the colleagues I am leaving areScott Weiss, Chris Jarvis, Davorin Dujmovic, LucaPetrelli, Brian Heinold, and our Secretary-of-the-First-Rank, Barb Levy. It would not be possibleto find a more congenial and harmonious group towork around and with. What I will miss the mostare 1) the students, and 2) daily interactions withmy colleagues. But I live only three miles from cam-pus, so I threaten to darken their doorstep often!

Worried that I won’t stay busy, many have askedme what I am going to do. Recently I have becomea partner (one of three) in the newly reorganizedHagerstown Almanack. We three have plans for ma-jor changes to that 211-year-old annual publication.I will work to implement those changes. I will re-program my part of the almanac. I will enlarge aweather database begun 20 years ago. I will builda new home computer (with Davorin’s help). I willcontinue to copy treasured LPs and audio tapes ofsymphonic and operatic music to CDs and audioDVDs. I will author DVD movies from our exten-sive collection of travel videotapes and home movies.I will continue to travel, but probably no more thanour usual four trips a year, since my wife, CathyBodin, wants to continue teaching for a few yearsyet. I will build a workshop in our new garage andfloor its attic for additional storage space. And Iwill write some music, a hobby I have not had timefor in recent years.

So you see that I will not just sit around andtwiddle my thumbs. It’s been a great experienceteaching and working with all of you! I cannot imag-ine having had a more worthwhile or interesting ca-reer! Thanks to all, students and professors alike!

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http://www.msmary.edu 2


Computer Pioneer, Bill O’Toole

By Fred Portier

Bill OToole is retiring from the Mount in May2007 after serving 41 years as a faculty member. Hishistory with the Mount dates back to 1964 when hetransferred to the Mount from Georgetown. Aftergraduating in 1966, he joined the Mount faculty asa lecturer. He was promoted to assistant professorin 1975 after earning his masters degree from theUniversity of Maryland, and served as departmentchair from 1992-98.

Bill was instrumental in bringing computing andcomputer science to the Mount. In 1967, the depart-ment decided that it was time to introduce coursesin computer science. Under Bills leadership, the col-lege joined a Seed Program made available throughthe National Bureau of Standards (later renamedthe National Institute for Standards and Technol-ogy). Students and faculty from the college werebused to Gaithersburg once a week for class to learnBASIC programming. Over time, Bill took overteaching this class at the Mount campus.

Bill O’Toole (December 2006)

Largely responsible for the introduction of com-

puters on campus, Bill in 1975 built the first aca-demic computer at the Mount, the Altair 8800. Thiscomputer was augmented, modified and enhancedby Bill for several years, including the writing oftwo operating systems. In 1982, Bill led an effortthat brought the first Prime computer, a super mini-computer, to campus. Prime computers formed thebackbone of central computing from 1982 to 1994.

During his career at the Mount, Bill took threesabbaticals. In 1980, he began work on a Ph.D.in computer science at UMBC. His 1988 sabbati-cal was spent writing a program that taught as-sembler language. He also presented a paper onthe same topic at an international computer confer-ence in Brisbane, Australia. For his 1995 sabbaticalhe continued improvements to his Assembly Lan-guage textbook and served as a tutor on assemblyprogramming at the University of Auckland, NewZealand.

He taught every math course ever included inour catalog in 40 years with the exception of the re-medial courses. In fact, he has taught courses thatare no longer in our catalog, such as Mathemati-cal Logic and Axiomatic Set Theory. His favoritemath courses have been those dealing with topol-ogy, his major subject in graduate school. Bill, inconjunction with John August, introduced graphingcalculators into the calculus sequence starting in the1980s.

Bill is perhaps best known as the prognosticatorand science editor for the J. Grubers HagerstownTown and Country Almanack. The 2007 editionmarks his 38th year in that role. Over the years, hehas given countless interviews for newspapers, mag-azines, radio and television including Voice of Amer-ica and broadcasts overseas on the Armed ForcesNetwork. We will miss not only Bills professionalcontributions, but his friendly and easygoing man-ner ... his stories of his many travels ... and hisunbelievable memory for names, numbers and gen-eral trivia.

This article appeared in the Spring 2007edition of Mount Magazine.

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MAA Student Chapter Report

By Deb Bosley, MAA Student Chapter Pres-ident

This year MAA brought in new members fromthe underclassmen. We had weekly meetings wherewe discussed new ideas for the club. Throughoutthe year, we held bi-weekly tutoring sessions for thelower level math classes. In the fall, we held addi-tional tutoring sessions before finals as communityservice. Also, some members attended the confer-ence for the National Council of Teachers of Math-ematics in Atlantic City, NJ. During the Springsemester we continued our weekly meetings, but wealso had brief meetings the following afternoon inorder to accommodate everyone’s schedules. OnMarch 14, we celebrated PI day; we invited mathprofessors and students to attend. Volunteers madepies and circular desserts, and we had pizzas. Somemembers attended the Spring MAA regional con-ference at Roanoke College. We worked with theFrederick County Public School System for our com-munity service project for the Spring Semester. Wecreated a Bingo game for teachers to use to help highschool students prepare and review for the Mary-land State High School Assessment in Algebra. Atthe end of the year, we held our annual dinner atOtt’s with ACM. Next year, the club hopes to be-gin a campus-wide contest by placing math-relatedpuzzles in the school’s newspaper for students tosolve.

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ACM Student Chapter Report

By Paul Donovan, ACM Student ChapterPresident

Another year of success has found our humblechapter, and we’ve both strengthened our member-ship numbers and reasserted the value of a computertechnology club on campus. Our club is not with-out a sense of fun! We hosted another of our tradi-tional Halo tournaments, giving the student body ofgamers a chance to blow off some school-year steam

with a little friendly competition. The turnout wasgood, even given an icy day on the mountain, anda prize, a pre-order of the soon-to-be-released Halo3 was awarded to the top player.

Our club is never all fun and games, though,and this year was no exception. Aside from hostingweekly service projects for people around campus,ACM also spearheaded a recycling project for usedcomputer components that would otherwise meettheir ends in landfills. Computer components weregathered from anyone around campus who had ex-tra, and ACM members gathered them, transport-ing them to the Montgomery County Shady GroveTransfer Station, where they were deposited witha special computer parts recycling station. ACMmembers are proud to say that they’ve served notonly the campus through their efforts, but the planetas well.

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MAA and ACM Student Chapters at Ott’s

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Dr. Melanie Butler hired as new assis-tant professor

By Fred Portier

Melanie Butler has been hired as a new assis-tant professor of mathematics. Melanie finished herPh.D. in Mathematics at Temple and comes to usafter teaching two years at West Virginia University.She is an algebraist but has recently been conduct-ing research in mathematics education as part ofher role in West Virginia’s Institute for Mathemat-ics Learning.

Melanie was hired as a result Professor BillO’Toole’s retirement.

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Clare Luce Boothe Program

By Fred Portier

In June 2006 Mount St. Mary’s University wasawarded a grant of $216,270 to support 3 undergrad-uate scholarships over 3 years. Awarded throughthe Henry Luce Foundation, the grant is from theClare Boothe Luce (CBL) Program for support ofwomen in science and engineering. Scholarships willbe awarded to female undergraduates in their junioror senior year, who have declared their academicmajor through the Math and Computer Science De-partment in computer science or mathematics. Re-cipients will be designated Clare Boothe Luce Schol-ars honoring Ms. Luce who enjoyed a remarkable70 year career in journalism, politics, the theatre,diplomacy, and intelligence. After the tragic deathof her daughter, Ms. Luce turned to Bishop Ful-ton Sheen for spiritual guidance and in 1946 wasreceived into the Roman Catholic Church. She diedin 1987 leaving the majority of her estate to bene-fit generations of women. Currently, the CBL Pro-gram is the single largest private source of fundingfor women in science and engineering in the UnitedStates.

The three Clare Boothe Luce scholars for the2006-07 academic year were:

• Alison P. Kopreski, a double major in Mathe-matics and Theology

• Natalie L. Norris, a Mathematics major witha minor in Information Systems

• Kelly A. Leonard, a Mathematics major pur-suing certification in secondary mathematicseducation.

All three students will graduate in 2007.

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Fred Portier, Dick Borst, John Au-gust, Christina (Wilson) Weaver, An-thony Weaver, and Bill at Bill O’Toole’sretirement party on May 4th

Research Highlights

By Fred Portier

This column, an annual feature of the What’s ν?,

briefly describes research projects by the department’s

students and faculty.

Four graduating seniors in Mathematics presentedpapers as part of the Mount’s Honor’s Program.They were Natalie Norris with Climate Change: Lo-cal and Global Patterns, under the direction of BillO’Toole, Kelly Leonard with Language in a Mid-dle School Mathematics Classroom under the direc-tion of Michelle Bower (Education), Alison Kopreski



with The Sacrament of Penance: A Comparisonof the 1975 Rite of Penance and Its Counterpartin the 1614 Rituale Romanum under the directionof Father James Donohue (Theology), and Debo-rah Bosley with Polynomials, Graphs, and Cross-Products under the direction of Fred Portier.

The Mount held its second annual Student Re-search Festival on April 1st. Two students in Math-ematics participated. Jen Fuller’s poster was en-titled An Empirical Approach Comparing 3 Algo-rithms in Finding Basic Feasible Solutions for Trans-portation Problems. Jen worked with Davorin Du-jmovic on this project. Natalie Norris’ poster wasentitled Weather and Climate Change: Local andGlobal Patterns. Jen worked with Bill O’Toole. Over-all, there were 35 projects representing 10 academicdepartments in this year’s festival.

Jen Fuller at the 2007 Mount Student Re-search Festival

Math Seminar I, II was directed by Bill O’Toolethis year. The topic was the history of mathematics.Students were given a list of names of 46 importantmathematicians ranging from the early Euclid andHypatia up to the contemporary John Nash. Eachstudent had to research two people from the list,write a paper on his or her life and work, and thenpresent their findings to the seminar class.

The theme for the CMSCI 475, Senior Project,

was hobbies. Under the direction of Scott Weiss, 6students completed projects. They were Mark Lillerwith Personal Organizer and Screensaver , Dan No-vak with Motorcycle Fault Diagnosis, Justin Peter-son with Poker Player Statistics Tracker , ChuckWelsh with Monopoly Extended, Brandon Werst withCheerleader Routine Animation, and Matthew Williswith Model Train Layout Designer.

Fred Portier worked with senior Deb Bosley ona mini-grant funded as part of Amy Langville’s (Col-lege of Charleston) National Science Foundation CA-REER grant. Amy Langville is a 1998 Mount grad-uate. Her grant was entitled Mathematical DeviceDissection Lab. The mini-grant was to create a labthat motivates and develops the use of random num-bers in modeling and simulation.

Brian Heinold had a paper accepted for publi-cation. A survey of sum list coloring will appearin Graph Theory Notes of New York, volume LII(Spring 2007). He also gave an invited talk at theAMS Special Session on Graph Theory and Combi-natorics in Hoboken, NJ in Spring 2007. The titleof his talk was Sum list coloring.

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What I do

By Michelle Falcinelli, class of 1992

I graduated from the Mount in May, 1992, witha mathematics degree in hand and a secure job withthe federal government awaiting me. I had no ideathat within one year, I would leave that job andstart on a journey through a variety of professionsthat would eventually bring me to where I am now,happily living abroad in Europe, working as a teacherand traveling the world in my free time.

I lasted just one year at that first job, then en-tered into the world of education. Some of my jobswere teaching in the traditional sense (in the class-room) while other jobs revolved around teachinggroups and individuals about health and fitness. Itaught mathematics in two different private schoolsin the metropolitan Washington area and at thesame time taught every kind of group exercise classimaginable as well as personal training individual



clients at a private studio. One of my clients had ac-tually connected me with the second school at whichI taught, and she also introduced me to the schoolwhere I have worked for the past five years, in Rome,Italy.

Michelle Falcinelli

In August, 2001, I moved to Italy to begin work-ing at the American Overseas School of Rome. Ihad never lived outside of the state of Maryland, sothis was a big move. I did not know anyone elseat the school and I did not speak one word of Ital-ian. Within a few months of moving there (thanksto hours of independent study), I was able to speakpassable Italian, had made friends with my new col-leagues as well as a few Italians, and had gotteninvolved in some community service activities spon-sored by a local group I met at church.

continued on page 13

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Euler Birthday

By Brian Heinold

This year, mathematicians worldwide are rejoic-ing over the 300th birthday of Leonhard Euler. Eu-ler was born on April 15, 1708 near Basel, Switzer-land. He originally was to have followed in his fa-ther’s footsteps as a minister, but it soon becameapparent that Euler was meant to be a mathemati-cian. At the age of 21, Euler was offered a positionat the St. Petersburg Academy. He then beganworking at a blistering pace that he would continuefor the rest of his life. As the political climate in18th century Russia began to seriously deteriorate,Euler, in 1741, moved to the Berlin Academy, wherehe remained for 25 years. Eventually, Euler ranafoul of Prussia’s Frederick the Great, and returnedto the St. Petersburg Academy in 1766, where heremained until his death, in 1790.

Euler published far more mathematics than any-one ever. Forty-eight years after he died, the St.Petersburg Academy was still publishing his papers.Since 1911, the Swiss Academy of Sciences has beenpublishing Euler’s collected works. It has taken over70 volumes, and they’re not even done. Calculus,algebra, number theory, geometry, and physics arejust some of the fields he made fundamental contri-butions to. Euler accomplished all of this despitelosing his vision by 1771. He is said to have re-marked, after losing sight in his right eye, “Now Iwill have less distraction.” Despite not being ableto see, Euler did not slow down his output of math-ematics. As is all this weren’t enough, he found thetime to have thirteen kids.

Euler is credited with introducing the symbolπ for pi, i for

√−1,∑

for summation, f(x) for afunction, and ex. Euler was the first to show that1+ 1

4 + 19 + 1

16 + · · · = π2

6 . He solved the Konigsburgbridge problem, said to be the first theorem of graphtheory or topology.

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Students elected to Pi Mu Epsilon

By Luca Petrelli

On November 19,2006 we held our third annualinduction ceremony for the Mathematics Honor So-ciety, Pi Mu Epsilon. The inductees this year were:Dr. Brian Heinold, our new faculty, and eight stu-dents; Caitlin Fitzsimmons, Jennifer Fuller, JessicaJackson, Ashley Keeney, Melissa McInerney, RobinMurphy, Vanessa Patterson, and Matthew Litvinas.Attending the ceremony were all faculty membersin the Math & Computer Science Department, thenewly inducted students, the Pi Mu Epsilon inducteesof last year, some family members and friends, andDr. David Rehm, our Vice President for AcademicAffairs.

The highlight of the induction ceremony is theinvited talk and this year we were delighted to haveDr. Fern Hunt with us. Dr. Hunt is a researchmathematician at the National Institute of Stan-dard and Technology, she has received her Ph.D.from the prestigious Courant Institute of Mathe-matical Sciences. She has held a few teaching po-sitions before joining NIST and has published ex-tensively in ergodic theory of dynamical systems,probability, information theory, and bioinformatics.She was also a winner of the prestigious FlemmingAward in 2000 for outstanding federal service. Hertalk, titled “Visualizing the Frequency Patterns inDNA”, was very informative and stimulating. Hersubject, DNA sequencing, is of great interest atthe moment and the talk generated many questionsfrom the audience.

Before calling it a night, we took some picturesof our inductees at their best, as you can see inthe attached picture. If you’d like more informationabout the Pi Mu Epsilon society visit the societywebsite at http://www.pme-math.org. If you’re in-terested in joining us for next year celebration ofour distinguished students please contact me at [email protected].

Pi Mu Epsilon Banquet .Back: MattLitvinus, Ashley Keeney, Caitlin Fitzsim-mons, Jen Fuller, Robin Murphey, Front:Jess Jackson, Melissa McInerney, VanessaPatterson

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My Adventure on Jeopardy!

By Scott Weiss

I almost missed the call. The caller ID simplysaid “California” and gave a number I didn’t recog-nize. So I went back to dinner and let it go to voicemail. Imagine my surprise when there was a mes-sage from Corinne of Jeopardy! wanting to checkmy eligibility information. I turned to my wife Su-san and said “Eek!”

Eight months previously in March 2006, I tookthe first-ever online contestant test offered by Jeop-ardy!. I signed up for it hours before it was given.The test consisted of fifty questions; you had tenseconds to answer each one. I felt fairly good aboutmy results, although Jeopardy! never tells you howwell you score on any of their tests. About 100,000people took the test; they randomly invited peoplewho passed it to a local live audition. I was luckyenough to get to go to a hotel in DC in May shortlyafter commencement for the second phase. Theytook pictures, had me fill out a lot of paperwork,gave another written test, and asked for five anec-dotes about myself (the hardest part of the wholething). Everyone there also participated in mockrounds of Jeopardy! played with actual buzzers.There was no money involved, but it was still funto play. At the end, the main contestant coordi-nator, Maggie Speak, asked me if I had any issues



with the equipment and said if I thought of any ac-commodations I might need on the show to let themknow. I took that as a good sign.

I was still shocked to get the call just six monthsafter my audition. Corinne invited me to a tapedate in Los Angeles in mid-December. I acceptedimmediately and then looked at the calendar. Itwas right during finals week. Fortunately my stu-dents and colleagues were very supportive of me go-ing on the show, and I arranged things so Susan andI could go out west. It would be a short trip - flyin Monday, tape on Tuesday, tape on Wednesdayif I was lucky, fly home Thursday. Fortunately mysister lived out in San Diego so we’d have someoneto help us navigate the area.

I think I slept some the night before the tap-ing, and I was able to eat a good breakfast in thehotel restaurant. The shuttle to the studio left at7:30 AM; the contestants congregated in the lobby,carrying our required three changes of clothes. Itwas a fun group of people to be hanging out with.We cracked jokes and told stories about ourselves.There was no gamesmanship. Meeting the othercontestants was the best part of the whole experi-ence.

Scott Weiss with Alex Trebek

There was plenty to do before we actually startedplaying. We were checked through security andgiven badges we couldn’t wear. We reviewed all the

paperwork we had previously sent in. We went overthe anecdotes we had sent in and picked the one wewanted Alex to focus on during our first game. Wegot make-up. Maggie went through a rousing speechgoing over the rules and discussing a few strategiesfor gameplay. (I would later use part of the speechto inspire the Mount’s College Bowl team to theirbest finish ever, but that’s another story.)

continued on page 15

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Lecture Series

By Davorin Dujmovic

The department organized three lectures in theMAA/ACM Lecture Series. On Sept 29, 2006 ourguest was Dr. John W. Dawson with lecture “KurtGodel: A Centennial Survey of his Life and Work.”Dr. Dawson is professor emeritus of Penn State -York and his lecture drew a wide range of audi-ence interested in history of mathematical logic andlogic in general. On Oct 27, 2006 the department’sguest was Dr. John Rosson with his lecture “Topol-ogy and Andrew-Curtis Conjecture.” Dr. Rossonis assistant professor in Millersville University. Hesuccessfully presented his own research work in apresentation tailored toward undergraduate audi-ence. The last in the series was the lecture “EllipticCurves and Poncelet’s Porism” on March 28, 2007by Dr. Darren Glass of Gettysburg College. Profes-sor Glass’s animated presentation was another effortto present research to our undergraduate students.

The hostess for all our guests was Megan Cza-jkowski and this was her first year in the role of ahostess which she performed splendidly.

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Mount Graduates for 2007

By Chris Jarvis

We are very happy to present to you the 2007Math and Computer Science graduates. We askedthe graduates to tell us what they had planned forafter graduation. This is what they say.

Funmi (Mathematics): Iam looking for a job inmy hometown in Connecti-cut and making plans forbeing an artist illustra-tor.

Deb Bosley (Mathemat-ics): After graduation, Iwill take some time tohang out with friends andtravel. Starting in June,I will be working at TheBoeing Company in An-napolis Junction, Mary-land

Jen Cubbage (Mathemat-ics with Secondary Ed-ucation): This is what Iknow about my life postgraduation: I have a jobto be a staff operationsspecialist with the FBI.I will be starting once Iget security clearance andgo through training. Be-fore then I am taking the summer off. I will be liv-ing in Germantown but my address is unknown asof right now. I will be getting married January 4th,2008 at the Mount.

Alsion Kopreski (Math-ematics and Theology):I have accepted a posi-tion with a program calledFOCUS, The Fellowshipof Catholic University Stu-dents, after graduation.I will be part of a teamof four and will spend thenext two years on a col-lege campus (I won’t find out where until June) lead-ing Bible studies, doing leadership training, and one-on-one discipleship.

Kelly Leonard (Mathe-matics with SecondaryEducation): After grad-uation, I plan on goingback to Long Island, NewYork, to teach high schoolmathematics. I currentlyhave a job offer here inFrederickCounty, Maryland, butI’m anxiously awaiting callsfrom school districts after budget hearings in May onLong Island.

Mark Liller (ComputerScience): After gradua-tion, I plan on workingfor Lockheed Martin inGaithersburg, Marylandstarting in June. I mayattempt graduate schooldown the line, but for nowI will be focusing on mycareer. I have no vaca-tion plans as yet.



Natalie Norris (Mathe-matics): I will be work-ing for Lockheed Martinas Systems Engineer As-sociate, starting on Aug.13th, in Herndon VA. Iam moving to Fairfax,VA in the beginning ofJune. I am spending mysummer with my friends,family, and working asthe Spiritual Life Director at Camp Hope.

Dan Novak (ComputerScience): I am currentlyemployed atNETC (National Emer-gency Training Center)as a full-time ComputerTechnician. We main-tain all the PC’s on thiscampus including issuesconcerning Programming, Networking, Hardware, andSoftware. I am also currently looking for a housearound the area. While doing so, I will be living withmy parents, studying for certifications, and possiblygoing to Graduate School.

Justin Peterson (ComputerScience): Right now I amworking at FEMA in Em-mitsburg in a part timeposition dealing with com-puters. I plan on con-tinuing working there andmoving up as soon as afull time position opensup. I also plan on get-ting certified as soon aspossible in A+. This summer I plan on going toVirginia Beach for a week for vacation. Other thanthat I am just going to see where life takes me.

Chris Welsh (ComputerScience): I’ll be kickingoff my post–college lifewith a two week backpack-ing trip in Ireland withtwo high school friends.We’re set to leave the dayafter graduation. I’m seek-ing a career as a juniorsoftware engineer/computerprogrammer, and am cur-rently in talks with Lock-heed Martin for a possible position.

Brandon Werst (Math-ematics and ComputerScience): I just thoughtthat I would briefly tellyou that I will be relax-ing for much of the sum-mer and spending timewith family. Also, to-wards the end of the sum-mer I will be working forLockheed Martin.

Matt Willis (ComputerScience): For the momentmy plans are to stay lo-cal and keep searching fora job.

Sarah Metheny (Math-ematics) Completed de-gree in December 2006.Not pictured.

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Mathematical Image

By Fred Portier

The image below was featured on the front pageof the last departmental newsletter. I challenged allof you to identify the picture with the only hint be-ing that the image was of mathematical or computerscience significance. Rob Allegar, class of 2001, wasthe first to identify it as a Bucky Ball. It is a triva-lent convex polyhedron with pentagonal and hexago-nal faces. They are of interest to chemists since theyare the structure of interesting organic molecules.The “Bucky” comes from the noted architect Buck-minster Fuller that built structures with geodesicdomes.

We have a new image to identify this year on thefront page. I am looking for a specific answer, nota general answer like circuit.

Bucky Ball

http://mathforum.org/alejandre/workshops/buckyball.html

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Students attending Bill O’Toole’s retirement party on May

4. Back Row: Bajomo Olufunmilayo (Funmi), Mark Liller,

Vanessa Patterson, Brandon Werst, Bill O’Toole, Deb Bosley,

Kelly Leonard, Jen Fuller. Around the table: Caitlin Fitzsim-

mons, Jess Jackson, Ashley Keeney, Alison Kopreski, Natalie

Norris, Melissa McInerney, Jen Cubbage

- ☼ -

Jokes

Shamelessly stolen from the web

A math professor is talking to her little brotherwho just started his first year of graduate school inmathematics.

“What’s your favorite thing about mathemat-ics?” the brother wants to know.

“Knot theory.”“Yeah, me neither.”

A mathematical biologist spends his vacationhiking in the Scottish highlands. One day, he en-counters a shepherd with a large herd of sheep. Oneof these cuddly, woolly animals would make a greatpet, he thinks...

“How much for one of your sheep?” he asks theshepherd.

“They aren’t for sale”, the shepherd replies.The math biologist ponders for a moment and

then says: “I will give you the precise number ofsheep in your herd without counting. If I’m right,



don’t you think that I deserve one of them as areward?”

The shepherd nods.The math biologist says: “387”.The shepherd is silent for a while and then says:

“You’re right. I hate to loose any of my sheep, butI promised: One of them is yours. Have your pick!”

The math biologist grabs one of the animals,puts it on his shoulders, and is about to march on,when the shepherd says: “Wait! I will tell you whatyour profession is, and if I’m right I’ll get the animalback.”

“That’s fair enough.”“You must be a mathematical biologist.”The man is stunned. “You’re right. But how

could you know?”“That’s easy: You gave me the precise number

of sheep without counting - and then you picked mydog...”

Dr. Seuss Explains Computers

If a Packet Hits a pocket on a socket ona port, and the bus is interrupted as avery last resort, and the address of thememory makes your floppy disk abort,then the socket packet pocket has an er-ror to report.

If your cursor finds a menu item fol-lowed by a dash, and the double-clickingicon puts your window in the trash, andyour data is corrupted ’cause the indexdoesn’t hash, then the situation’s hope-less and your systems gonna crash!

If the label on the cable on the table atyour house, says the network is connectedto the button on your mouse, but yourpackets want to tunnel on another proto-col, that’s repeatedly rejected by the printerdown the hall, and your screen is all dis-torted by the side effects of gauss, soyour icons in the window are as wavyas a souse, then you may as well rebootand go out with a bang, ’cause as sureas I’m a poet, the sucker’s gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy’s gettingsloppy on the disk, and the microcode in-structions cause unnecessary risk, then

you have to flash your memory and you’llwant to RAM your ROM. Quickly turnoff the computer and be sure to tell yourmom.

Author unknown

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What I do (continued)

continued from page 7

Teaching in an overseas school is fascinating. Look-ing out on any given class, you see children of atleast ten different nationalities, and their names andappearances are as exotic as the countries they comefrom. When they are given something to work onin small groups, you often hear four or more dif-ferent languages being spoken. It is not unusual toteach a concept in English and then stop and waitwhile one (at least bi-lingual) student translates theideas for another non-English speaking student, inwhatever their common language is. In the UnitedStates, I found that there were many students withlearning disabilities; in an international school, thechild may have no disability other than simply notspeaking English! The parents of these children arejust as interesting, and I find that I actually look for-ward to parent-teacher conferences, because I like somuch to hear about where they are from and whatkind of work they do.

I have the good fortune to have gotten involvedwith activities outside of school which also contributeto the fun of living abroad. I have Italian friendsthat I run and bike with, as well as friends from allover the world who are members of the same churchcommunity as me. It is this second group whichwas instrumental in getting me to where I am pre-cisely at this time in my life, which is travellingaround the world for one year as a volunteer. Sincemoving to Rome, I have served in many ministriesof this community, including their soup kitchen, el-derly homes, and food distribution center. It is withthis group that I travelled last summer to Tirana,Albania, and worked for a week at an old and de-crepit psychiatric hospital, ministering to a group ofmen who had been there for years, some as many asthirty years! Others I met facilitated my first trip



to Africa, to Ethiopia, where I helped teach mathlessons to a Christian school out in a remote village.

I enjoyed those experiences so much that I de-cided to take a leave of absence from my position atthe American Overseas School this year and do twothings: travel around a good bit of the world and dosome good at the same time. I spent three monthsin West Africa, in Cameroon, another month in Al-bania, a month in Thailand, and am about to headoff to Brazil. Although it has not been easy livingout of a suitcase and begging hospitality off of dif-ferent friends from one place to the next, this hasbeen the most adventurous and exciting year of mylife by far!

In Cameroon, I worked at a Franciscan mission,where I divided my time each day between the hos-pital pharmacy, the girls’ vocational school, and theorphanage. I learned to share my living space withspiders and to live on a diet of rice and bread and afew varieties of fruit. I learned to do without manycomforts of home, including coffee, sweets, and reli-able internet access. In Albania, I had the amazingexperience of working with Mother Teresa’s Mis-sionaries of Charity in one of their homes for dis-abled children who are, essentially, orphans or aban-doned by their parents. There I witnessed real non-stop service in a way I never would have thoughtpossible. As I bundled up in layers of thermal un-derwear, fleece, a scarf and hat to go out to cate-chism, the little children who came to the catechismcame from homes that are essentially wood shacksor concrete blocks in which they burn rubbish tokeep warm, often dressed in nothing more than athin denim jacket and open sandals. In Thailand, Iworked in a ward of an orphanage where all the chil-dren were afflicted with varying degrees of cerebralpalsy. In that one ward alone, there were more thanone hundred children. Their day consisted of get-ting fed, getting a diaper change, a t-shirt change,and repeating that cycle, and if they were lucky,a volunteer would pick them out of the crowd andtake them out for an hour of fresh air. When I goto Brazil, I will be teaching a course in basic En-glish to the poor of Salvador, which they hope willenable them to move up and out of their slums intothe cities to get a better job.

In between each trip, I return to Rome for ashort period of time. During those times, I still workfor my church community, this time around doingtranslation work for them. There is a group whichfacilitates international adoptions, and I translate

their yearly evaluations of the children from Italianinto English. This is the “easy” work of this year ofvolunteer service; I almost consider it my vacationtime, because I have nice places to stay with friends,along with all the comforts of life I am used to: cap-puccino, good Italian food, my motorino (transportin these other countries is yet another memorableexperience!), and my friends. However, each time atrip is about to finish, I am sad to leave the countryand experience behind, and I always look forwardto the next destination.

Obviously, experiences like these leave lastingimpressions and teach many lessons. Seeing howmany people in the world get by on so little hastaught me to simplify my own life. I have learn–ed to value possessions less, and human relation-ships more. I appreciate and enjoy much more nowthe possessions and comforts I do have, and I havelearned to find happiness in many small but signif-icant ways every day. The other outstanding ben-efits I get out of all this are the memories, stories,and friendships which I will keep and treasure forthe rest of my life. It is true what people say, life isabout the journey, not the destination, and I encour-age anyone who hasn’t yet done it, to get out and seethe world and let your life be enriched and changedby the amazing experiences that await those who gofor it!

Teaching in an overseas school is fascinating.Looking out on any given class, you see children ofat least ten different nationalities, and their namesand appearances are as exotic as the countries theycome from. When they are given something to workon in small groups, you often hear four or more dif-ferent languages being spoken. It is not unusual toteach a concept in English and then stop and waitwhile one (at least bi-lingual) student translates theideas for another non-English speaking student, inwhatever their common language is. In the UnitedStates, I found that there were many students withlearning disabilities; in an international school, thechild may have no disability other than simply notspeaking English! The parents of these children arejust as interesting, and I find that I actually look for-ward to parent-teacher conferences, because I like somuch to hear about where they are from and whatkind of work they do.

I have the good fortune to have gotten involvedwith activities outside of school which also contributeto the fun of living abroad. I have Italian friendsthat I run and bike with, as well as friends from all



over the world who are members of the same churchcommunity as me. It is this second group which wasinstrumental in getting me to where I am preciselyat this time in my life, which is traveling around theworld for one year as a volunteer. Since moving toRome, I have served in many ministries of this com-munity, including their soup kitchen, elderly homes,and food distribution center. It is with this groupthat I traveled last summer to Tirana, Albania, andworked for a week at an old and decrepit psychiatrichospital, ministering to a group of men who hadbeen there for years, some as many as thirty years!Others I met facilitated my first trip to Africa, toEthiopia, where I helped teach math lessons to aChristian school out in a remote village.

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My Adventure on Jeopardy!

continued from page 9

Then we were out on the set. We all practicedwith the buzzers for a few minutes and then rotatedin and out for a full game of Jeopardy with oneof the coordinators standing for Alex. (Since Alexknows the answers & questions, he may let some-thing slip if he meets with the contestants outsideof the game. So the contestants only see Alex in thecontext of play; no visit to his private hot tub.) Afew tidbits about the set: Answers really do appearon the board; fortunately the font is large enoughthat contestants can read the text from the podi-ums. There are little lights that turn on next to theboard when you’re supposed to ring in. Buzz in be-fore the lights come on, and you’re locked out for aquarter second. To the left of the board is a monitorfor video clues. The monitor is tough to see; fortu-nately most video clues have the text displayed onthe board. The scores for the contestants appearabove and to the left of the gameboard. If you seecontestants look at the ceiling while contemplatinga Daily Double wager, that’s what they’re lookingat.

I did pretty well in game 2, although I only an-swered a couple of questions in the computer cate-gory. I again ended with a lock after double Jeop-ardy...but wait! In the Authors’ Middle Names cat-egory, I pronounced the middle name of The Year-ling author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings as Keenan

instead of Kinahn. So at the break, they took awaythe money they gave me. Oops. Fortunately, thefinal on Novel Titles was pretty easy; all three of usgot it, and I ended notching my second win.

Just minutes later came game 3. I opted fora sweater instead of a suit jacket and tie whichmeant I could feel the wireless microphone againstmy back. The distraction receded once the gamestarted. The first round featured a theme board;all the categories were associated with St. Patrick’sDay, which would be the day after the episode aired.(I knew beforehand when the shows would air, butI didn’t bother studying anything Irish, since St.Patrick’s Day was on a weekend. Shows what Iknow.) There was only one category that I liked(“Lep”rechauns, featuring words with “lep” in them),and it showed. I had no money at the first commer-cial break and only $400 at the end of round 1. Thewonderful Maggie came up to me at the break andwhispered a pep talk, telling me to go out there andbeat those guys.

The talk worked. I came alive in the secondround, missing only a video Daily Double on Euclid(a mathematician, no less!) by being unable to seethe relevant part of the picture on the monitor. I didget a Daily Double on the U.S. president whose firstname comes last alphabetically (Zachary Taylor),did quite well on a category of Jeopardy! in PopCulture, and benefitted from a few missteps by myopponents. I took a shot at the last question in theround to get another lock, but I missed it, givingone of my opponents a chance at it.

That actually worked out well, since it left thetwo challengers with $8000 to my $13400. I realizedthat they would have to wager everything to guardagainst each other. I also knew that there had neverbeen a three-way tie before on Jeopardy!. I saw achance to make history, and I took it. I wagered$2600 and hoped for the best. Fortunately, thingsworked well. All three of us correctly answered thequestion on Bonnie Parker, and we all won $16000.It was a stunning moment for everyone in the studio.As it was the last show of the day, we gathered upour stuff in a state of shock. A schoolteacher in theaudience came up and thanked me for teaching hiskids such a valuable lesson in sportsmanship. Oneof my friends in the audience thought this could endup being big news. Really? It was just Jeopardy!.Even so, I was thrilled. We headed back to thehotel and then out to dinner with my sister andsome friends of hers. I fell asleep at the table.



Back to work the next morning. At breakfast,Susan and I got to chat some with my opponentsfrom Friday’s game (and my opponents again forMonday) and their wives. We took pictures of thethree of us and exchanged email addresses. Thenit was off to the studio for a repeat of yesterdaymorning with less paperwork to sign. I didn’t feelas comfortable with rehearsal today, so I was a bitworried going into the game. It was fun to playagainst the same two people; we had bonded, soit was like playing against friends. I played muchbetter than I did the previous game, only givingone wrong response. I didn’t quite have the lockunfortunately, and this time the final wasn’t kind.The category was Historic Quotes: On May 5, 1961,he famously exclaimed “What a beautiful view!”. Iimmediately realized it was related to space, butI went with John Glenn instead of Alan Shepard.The second-place person got it right, I got it wrong,and he became the new champion. My final totalwinnings was $63,001.

We stuck around to watch the next couple ofgames from the audience (the person who beat mealso ended up a 3-time champion), but we left thestudio at the lunch break. Watching Jeopardy frommy sister’s house that evening was a surreal expe-rience; all the camera angles looked totally wrong.We flew back to Maryland the next day, ready todeal with the piles of grading that had accumulated.

The next three months were agonizing. Thecontracts you sign forbid you from talking to any-one about the outcomes of the games, although it’smainly a prohibition from the media. While mostlyeverybody figured I had won a game, we kept the tiea closely guarded secret. Throughout the semester,students would try to pry information out of me.The excitement started to build in early March.Press releases from the show and from the Mountgot me newspaper, radio, and television interviews,and this was before I played a single game!

On March 14 for game 1, we had a small groupat home with Susan’s parents and Prof. O’Tooleand his wife. Susan’s parents came back again forgame 2. We planned a big party in Laughlin Audi-torium on March 16 when we’d watch games 1 and2 on tape, and then game 3 “live”. Unfortunatelythe weather was uncooperative. After nearly 80 de-gree temperatures earlier in the week, Maryland washit with a major ice and snow storm. I drove toschool in the morning, realized the weather wasn’tgoing to get any better, shifted the party to Satur-

day, and then drove home. Fortunately, my parentsand two of our close friends were able to brave theweather and get to our house to watch with us thatevening. The party the next day was still very well-attended. I gave commentary on all three episodesand answered everyone’s questions about the show,especially about the tie.

The response to the tie was more than I imag-ined. People were blogging and posting about it allover the Internet. Some people thought I made anerror in the wager; some people thought I was a saintfor doing it. Video of the final Jeopardy responseon YouTube garnered tens of thousands of views.David Letterman mentioned the tie in his mono-logue. You could see my picture on Yahoo!’s frontpage. I was interviewed by both the Catholic Re-view and the Washington Jewish Week. The mostexciting event to come out of the tie was an invi-tation to be interviewed on CNN with my two op-ponents. I was picked up by town car and drivento the CNN studios in DC. My opponents were inGainesville and San Francisco; the interviewer wasin Atlanta. I spent the interview staring at a cameralistening to the conversation through an earpiece. Itwas quite surreal.

In all, it was an amazing experience. There’s stilla small chance I might get invited to a Tournamentof Champions in the future. As of this writing, I’mtied for fourteenth place on the season; the top 14get invited. But if not, it will be a treasured memoryfor me to tell my grandkids about someday. And the$63000 isn’t so bad either.

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Bicentennial Competition

By Brian Heinold

To celebrate the Mount’s Bicentennial, we willbe holding a Bicentennial Math and ComputerScience Contest. Each week throughout the falland spring semesters, 7 new problems will be postedat online. There will be 200 problems in total (nat-urally). Some of the problems may require knowl-edge of calculus or linear algebra, but most won’t.The contest is open to all current and former stu-dents of the Mount. There will be prizes! Visithttp://faculty.msmary.edu/heinold/contest.


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