Seven faculty members and 4 students attended the Louisiana/Mississippi Mathematical Association of America Section
meeting in Lafayette, LA on
February 25 - 26.
Faculty attending were
Carlos Spaht,
Conway Link,
Paul Sisson,
Al Vekovius,
Julien Doucet,
Rogers Martin and
Judith Covington;
the students were Jennifer DeBello, David Fletcher, Shamuka Shivashankara and Brad Weatherly.
Faculty members presented 4 papers:
Carlos Spaht served as the Louisiana Vice Chair, chaired the committee that selected the outstanding teacher award and chaired one of the paper sessions. Judith Covington served on the Location and Nomination Committee and introduced the winner of the teaching award.
The students entered the student team math competition.
Abstract: We shall look at some of the similarities and differences between finite differences and derivatives. One can understand more clearly what must have led to the development of the derivative and calculus. Finite difference is defined as follows:
Given a (finite) sequence {xj| 1 < j < n }: the finite difference of xj, D
j xj, is defined by D
j xj º
xj+1 -
xj, for 1 < j < n.
Abstract: The method of syntehetic division for division of a polynomial by a monic linear term, x-a, is well known; it appears in many college algebra texts. The method has a natural extension to monic divisors of higher degree. The extension speeds up polynomial "long division" and makes it easier for students while reducing errors, yet it seems to be little known.
Abstract: This paper presents an extended instructional example that ties together many of the concepts often encountered in college algebra. The original goal for the example was to find an application in which polynomial equations of arbitrarily high degree arise naturally, but the example has acquired other virtues over the years. In its present form, it serves as a convenient and unified review of such diverse topics as Descartes' Rule of Signs, Geometric Series, exponential functions and complex numbers, as well as a good illustration of the power of symbolic math software such as Mathematica.
Student statistics project groups in statistics classes offered in the LSU-S Mathematics Department frequently investigate topics requiring polling to obtain the required information. When the results are of interest to the community, some may be reported with a slant by the local media. Several examples are contained in this paper.