Kieval Lecture Series

The Kieval Lecture Series is funded through a bequest of the late Dr. Harry S. Kieval '36, a longtime professor of mathematics at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, who died in 1994. In addition to this lecture series, his estate provides funding to Cornell University for a similar lecture in physics, as well as annual prizes awarded to outstanding seniors in both mathematics and physics.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Keith Devlin, Stanford University (executive director of the H-STAR Institute)
Using Mathematics to Solve Life's Mysteries (poster)

NPR's “Math Guy” Keith Devlin will show you how mathematics can be used to answer some of life’s more puzzling mysteries, including:

• Why do golf balls have dimples?
• What really keeps an airplane in the sky?
  (The answer you find in most math books — and many pilot instruction manuals — is wrong.)
• How did Lance Armstrong with the Tour de France seven times by 2 to 8 minutes?
  (It wasn’t drugs.)
• Why does a skateboard leave the ground when its rider executes a jump?
• How does a bicycle turn?
  (This one is much more complicated than you ever imagined.)

The lecture will take place in 228 Malott Hall (Bache Auditorium) at 4:30 p.m. Please join us for refreshments before the talk in 532 Malott Hall.

Other Lectures in the Series

The Mathematics of Juggling (October 2007)
Allen Knutson, University of California at San Diego

The Past and Future of Geometric Flows (September 2007)
Richard Hamilton, Columbia University

Mathematics and Magic Tricks (September 2005)
Persi Diaconis, Stanford University

The Shape of Space (April 2004)
Jeff Weeks, Topology and Geometry Software

The Mathematics of Set -or- Everything I Know About Fourier Analysis I Learned from Playing Cards (April 2002)
Jordan Ellenberg, Princeton University
(sponsored by the Student Activities Finance Commission)

Fun from Mathematics & Mathematics from Fun (November 2001)
Richard Guy, University of Calgary

Real Estate in Hyperbolic Space: Investment Opportunities in the Next Millenium (September 2000)
Colin Adams, Williams College

Hilbert's Eleventh Problem: Representing Integers by Quadratic Forms (April 2000)
Peter Sarnak, Princeton University
(sponsored by the Student Activities Finance Commission)

Parametrizing Knots (November 1999)
Joan Birman, Columbia University

Pasting Together Julia Sets (October 1998)
John Milnor, SUNY Stony Brook

Last modified:September 8, 2009