UMKC Department of Mathematics and Statistics
What's New"De Morgan: Teacher and Algebraist"will be published in the UMKC Fall 2008 Sosland Journal. The paper was written during Spring 2008 for Math 464 WI (History of Mathematics, Writing Intensive) taught by Richard Delaware.
"Abraham De Moivre's 1718 Proof of a Gambler's Ruin Problem",
"Leonhard Euler's 1734 and 1743 Proofs that
[The 1/k2 Series] = pi2/6.
"Variations in Carotid Artery Intima-media Thickness during the Cardiac Cycle"
Spencer Menees, Joseph Le, David McCrary MD, Danna Zhang MS, Jie Chen PhD, Geetha Raghuveer MD, MPH, and
"Vascular Age of Children of Hypercholesterolemia"at the tenth annual UMKC School of Medicine Student Research Day 2008. Congratulations, Danna! Her department faculty mentor is Jie Chen.
Joseph Le, Spencer Menees, David McCrary MD, Danna Zhang MS, Jie Chen PhD, Geetha Raghuveer MD, MPH,
"Graphs Based on Vector Spaces over Finite Fields"at the eighth annual SEARCH Symposium for Research and Creative Achievements in Pierson auditorium, winning First Prize in the "Physical Sciences and Mathematics" Division. Congratulations, Whitney! Her faculty mentor is Liana Sega. [This award was also mentioned in a U-News article, April 28 issue, p.5, "UMKC Undergrads Show Off Research".]
"Nicole Oresme: The Kinematics of Celestial Motion."Her paper was written this Spring 2008 for Math 464 WI (History of Mathematics, Writing Intensive) taught by Richard Delaware.
17 March 2008: We learn that undergraduate major Whitney Berard [See picture at right.] is awarded a
SEARCH grant to do undergraduate research with our own Liana Sega.
"Koksma's 1949 Proof that: er is irrational for all nonzero rational exponents r. [Plus! Sondow's new 2006 geometric proof that e is irrational.]",
[See picture at left.]
"Courant's 1941 Pancake Theorem Proof: Two bounded, open, connected plane sets can be cut by a single line that divides each set in half by area".
[See picture at right.]
For Yawo, Jamie, and Tom the talk was an assignment for Math 402 (Advanced Analysis I) taught by Richard Delaware.
"A Proof of Lebesgue's 1903 Criterion: A function f: [a, b] to R is Riemann-integrable if and only if f is bounded and the set of points of [a, b] at which f is not continuous has measure zero".
[See picture at left.]
"Benko's New 2007 Proof that: A given axb rectangle R can be decomposed into finitely-many rectangles which can be translated to compose another given parallel cxd rectangle R' if and only if area(R) = area(R') and a/c is rational.",
[See picture at left.]
For Whitney and Brian the talk was an assignment for Math 402 (Advanced Analysis I) taught by Richard Delaware.
"Saari's 1981 Proof that:
In any election with n > 3 candidates, given j < n voting vectors W1, ..., Wj (procedures which assign points to each candidate according to the voter's ranking), there exist voter profiles (choices of how the set of voters rank the candidates) so that when the voters vote for j of the candidates using voting vector Wj, then the jth candidate wins."
[See picture at right.]
19 September 2007:
Graduate Teaching Assistant Carol Hanson is recognized at the Student Affairs Convocation as a graduate Student Award Winner, an award for "students who have persevered through difficulty while pursuing their academic goals". Her photo will be displayed on Sept. 20 at the Celebrate UMKC Convocation, and her award will be announced on the Celebrate UMKC web site. Congratulations, Carol!
"A Proof of the 'Law of Quadratic Reciprocity'
First proved by Gauss in 1801",
[See picture at left.]
For Tera, the talk was an assignment for Math 410 (Modern Algebra) taught by Eric Hall, and for Dan, the talk was an assignment for Math 414 (Mathematics for Secondary Teachers: Algebra & Analysis) taught by Richard Delaware.
"At Most 4 Colors are Needed to Color any Plane Map:
Kempe's Incorrect 1879 'Proof'
and the Error Found by Heawood 10 Years Later!".
[See picture at right.]
Congratulations to them all!
- Li Deng, MS graduate (Dec. 2006) with statistics emphasis, has been employed by PRA International in Overland Park, KS since February 2007.
- Yue Zhu, MS graduate (Dec. 2006) with statistics emphasis, has been employed as a Statistical Analyst intern by T-mobile in Seattle, WA since March 2007.
- Nicole Wright, MS graduate student (graduating May 2007), and our first department Graduate Student Representative has accepted a position from Lockheed-Martin in Denver, CO.
- Steve Shattuck, Interdisciplinary PhD graduate student, with coordinating discipline Mathematics (with Statistics emphasis) and co-discipline Education, has been awarded the Chancellor's Doctoral Fellowship for 2007-2008, following the completion of his Preparing Future Faculty Fellowship of 2004-2007. Dr. Chen is his IPhD advisor.
"George Berkeley's Mathematical Philosophy and The Calculus",and another expository mathematics paper written by Mathematics major Lisa Erickson, titled
"Polygonal Numbers".Congratulations Sam and Lisa! The two papers were written during Winter 2006 for Math 464 WI (History of Mathematics, Writing Intensive) taught by Richard Delaware.

"Because the Math Resource Center has a successful working relationship with the math department, it is very well advertised. All students taking math courses receive flyers about it during classes, and professors regularly refer those who need help."The article also notes that the Math Resource Center "...serves about 3,000 students each year."
"A Proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra [every real or complex polynomial of degree n > 1 has at least one real or complex root] using D'Alembert's Lemma of 1746",
[See picture at left.]
For Sam, the talk was an assignment for Math 407 (Introduction to Complex Variables), and for Tony, the talk was an assignment for Math 402 (Advanced Analysis I) both taught by Richard Delaware.
"A 1995 Proof and Algorithm for a
4 Person Envy-Free Cake-cutting Protocol
[where each person believes his or her piece
is not less than anyone else's]".
[See picture at right.]
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"Weierstrass' Proof that his 1872 'Pathological Function' is
Everywhere Continuous but Nowhere Differentiable!",
[See picture at left.]
For Lindsey, the talk was an assignment for Math 402 (Advanced Analysis I), and for Bill, the talk was an assignment for Math 424 (Mathematics for Secondary Teachers: Geometry) both taught by Richard Delaware.
"A Proof of Euler's 1750 Formula for Polyhedra
V - E + F = 2 [Vertices - Edges + Faces = 2], and
its Application to Pick's Theorem of 1899".
[See picture at right.]
"Weierstrass' Proof that his 1872 'Pathological Function' is Everywhere Continuous but Nowhere Differentiable!",and Bill Gessley speak on
"A Proof of Euler's 1750 Formula for Polyhedra V - E + F = 2 [Vertices - Edges + Faces = 2], and its Application to Pick's Theorem of 1899"in our Expository Talks Series, eat dinner at Baja 600 on the Plaza, and lastly see a movie in the area. From our department, Liana Sega, Eric Hall, and Richard Delaware joined the group for dinner.
[Left: Liana Sega & Samantha Reynolds]
Friday September 22Followed by
3:00-3:50 pm
Royall Hall Room 205
with Pizza and Soft Drinks!
[For more information about the MAA Student Chapter, contact Dr. Liana Sega.]
4:00-4:50 pm
Haag Hall Room 309
Expository Mathematics Talk
Dr. Tristan Londre of MCC Blue River Community College
[Tristan had Dr. Rhee as his PhD Advisor here.]
Title: "Clifford Algebras and Spacetime:
A Way to Multiply Vectors that has Useful Applications"
See Expository Talks for other talks this semester.
24 May 2006: We hear the good news that undergraduate mathematics major (and UMKC 2006 B.S. graduate) Samantha Reynolds has won one of two 1st place awards in the third annual HOMSIGMAA (History of Mathematics Special Interest Group of the Mathematical Association of America) contest for papers written in History of Mathematics courses across the country. In fact, three UMKC Department of Mathematics and Statistics students were finalists this year: Samantha, Sam Butler-Hunziker, and Lisa Erickson (also a UMKC 2006 B.S. graduate) [Last year on 9 May 2005, we heard that undergraduate mathematics major Newlyn Walkup won 1st place in the second annual contest. Newlyn's paper was then published in the MAA's online History of Mathematics magazine Convergence: Where Mathematics, History and Teaching Interact. The previous year on 24 April 2004, we heard that undergraduate mathematics major Heath Yates shared 1st place in the first such annual contest.] Samantha's paper is titled
"Maria Gaetana Agnesi: Female Mathematician and Brilliant Expositor of the Eighteenth Century."She will receive a certificate from the MAA, a free MAA student membership for next year, and $25 worth of books from the MAA online bookstore. Her paper will also be published on the HOMSIGMAA website. Congratulations, Samantha! Her paper was written during Winter 2005, while the other two finalist papers were written during Winter 2006, all for Math 464 WI (History of Mathematics, Writing Intensive) taught by Richard Delaware.
4 May 2006: Our 2006 M.S. in Mathematics graduate Breanne Volkerding is awarded a 2005-2006 Graduate Teaching Assistant Superior Teaching Award at the School of Graduate Studies 17th Annual Awards Convocation. Hers was one of just three such awards given in the School of Arts and Sciences. Congratulations, Breanne!