Hajaiej Hichem
Fanghua Lin, Yisong Yang, Stephen Douglas and Myself have launched the Maths Club of NYU Shanghai.
The Math Club is a student club at the Institute of Maths of NYU Shanghai; open not only to math majors but also to all students interested in mathematics and its applications. Its goal is to promote mathematics to a broad audience and bring together all people enthusiastic about mathematics.
Long-term Activities:
The activities of the Math Club will include
-Participating in events organized by the Maths Department seminars, conferences, lectures)
-Working groups in preparation for the exams supervised by Instructor and teaching assistants)
-Collecting and sharing useful links for math resources.
-Initiation to research: quizzes, case studies, projects, brain teasers, fun problem.
-Connect them with alumini ( partnership, it will be a good idea that each undergraduate student can have a graduate or alumini partner)
– Summer researches opportunities.
-Promoting and encouraging undergraduate research through our Suggested Articles section on the Math Club webpage.
This page will include:
-Problem of the week (these problems should get the students to think more deeply about maths
-Old exams.
-Some articles dealing with maths foundation, its connection to other fields and its applications. There are many in AMM (Susanna S. Epp: The Role of Logic in Teaching Proof, The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 110, No. 10 (Dec., 2003), pp. 886-899, Arthur Rosenthal: The History of Calculus, The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 58, No. 2 (Feb., 1951), pp. 75-86). These articles will be discussed in the Maths Club.
-We will also invite some specialists of the history of maths and epistemology to give talks and to organize 1 hour session of questions..
For many students, maths is an abstract subject which has nothing to do with real life. It will invite some people working in finance, engineering to give a talk about how they are using what they learnt during their studies in their work.
Below is the program of the Inaugural day.
- p. m The inaugural speech of Provost Joanna Waley-Cohen.
- 10 p.m Speech of Professor Fanghua Lin.
- 20 p.m Talk of Professor William Faris, Title ‘Quantum Mechanics Ruined My Life’
- 20 p.m Refreshment, Discussions, submission of the applications ( President of the club, Vice-President, Treasurer, Secretary).
- 15 p.m Presentation of the candidates ( president, vice-president……)
- 7 p.m Vote.
- 15 p.m Reporting the results.
- 30 p.m Game ( please see the details below).
Talk of Professor William Faris
Quantum Mechanics Ruined My Life
Abstract
Quantum mechanics is a remarkable subject:
1) It uses highly abstract advanced mathematics.
2) It is fundamental to all modern science, including chemistry and physics.
3) It is in many ways still mysterious.
This talk will describe my efforts to understand the deeper meaning of quantum mechanics.
The result has been both delight and frustration. Has it really ruined my
life? Not really. But I would love to see further progress, and none is
in sight.
The Game
Chinese Two Armies (English version; comparable American board game: Stratego)
This is a classic two-player board game of battlefield strategy.
Each player commands a troop of 25 game pieces: 1 Flag, 1 Army, 1 Corps, 2 Divisions, 2 Brigades, 2 Regiments, 2 Battalions, 3 Companies, 3 Platoons, 3 Engineers, 3 Mines, and 2 Bombs.
To win a game, one must either capture the Flag piece or defeat all the movable pieces of the opponent player.
The battlefield consists of railway tracks along which the pieces can move continuously,
country-road routes along which the pieces cannot move continuously,
and bases which provide shelters to any pieces occupying them. On each side,
the Flag piece is to be secretly placed in one of the two castle-shaped headquarters
and guarded by movable troop pieces and unmovable Mines.
Chinese Four Armies (English version; comparable American board game: Ultimate Stratego)
This is a four-player board game similar to Two Armies.
Four players are playing as two opponent allies and the goal of a game is to capture the two Flags or defeat all movable pieces of the two allying opponents.
This game requires a high level of cooperation and coordination between the allied players and is full of challenge and surprising outcomes
due to the complexity of the involvement of four players since each player can only read the player’s
own pieces and make judged decisions based on the movements of the ally and opponents
Maximum concentration of Kenneth Ward ,Stephen Douglas-Bates and Myself during the talk of William Faris; all of us were wondering how Quantum Mechanics can ruin ‘ lives’
William Faris during his Awesome Talk…
Finally It seems that William Faris won against Quantum Mechanics…He ruined Quantum Mechanics Life!!
Everyone is listening very carefully to William, Olympian Calm….
Fanghua told us several times that he wants this Club to be a fun Club, and he is showing us the way!!
Provost Joanna Waley-Cohen giving her Inaugural speech….