Shape of Space

Patrick Carney (pcarney@lunar.rutgers.edu)
Sun, 26 Apr 98 18:38:02 EDT


Just thought I would pass on to all of you something that seemed to work for
us. As part of Math Awareness Month, we showed The Geometry Center's tape of
"The Shape of Space" to the entire assembled student body and faculty. I
gave them a brief introduction about how math is much broader than they think
and how the tape includes ideas from art, science, cosmology, etc. and
afterwards said a few words about Jeff Week's book and his web site
(http://www.northnet.org/weeks/) with the games played on the torus and Klein
Bottle.

Both faculty (non-math -- since the math faculty had viewed and approved the
presentation) and student response was positive. One student waited for me to
come out of the auditorium so she could borrow the book and another borrowed
the tape for the weekend so he could show his father. Each math teacher had a
copy of the URL and, from what I have heard, I was not the only one giving
out copies of it. One junior who is finishing BC Calc this semester wanted to
know if he could do an independent study on the topic next year. Both the
chair and the academic dean have approved.

I want to publicly thank Lou Giglio and Chuck Biehl for help with materials,
ideas, and inspiration for this presentation.

As ever,
Bro. Pat Carney