The last SUMO event of the year is going to be Saturday June 9 at 8pm on the third floor of the math department, Building 380. Come to play games, watch The Legend of Drunken Master, chat with cool people, and of course enjoy good food!
The bookstore has two upcoming events that might be of interest:
Elwyn Berlekamp, Professor of Mathematics at UC Berkeley and author of The Dots-and-Boxes Game, will be at the Stanford Bookstore discussing the mathematical underpinnings in the Dots-and-Boxes game and sign copies of his book. Berlekamp has found that within this deceptively simple game, which most of us remember playing as a child, lies an introduction to combinatorial game theory, an area in which several economists have won Nobel prizes.
Berlekamp has taken on as many as 20 opponents at once in the Dots-and-Boxes Game and he will award $50 to anyone who can beat him!
So join us for this fun event and try your hand at the Dots-and-Boxes Game with Elwyn Berlekamp!
Join us as David Berlinski explains how the dizzying speed of the digital computer was made possible by the discovery of a powerful mathematical concept called the Algorithm. He will discuss the ideas in his book, which touch upon the genius and accomplishments of the Algorithms' earliest developers and how this "recipe" or "prescription for action" paved the way for the present digital age.
The Advent of the Algorithm is available now at the Stanford Bookstore!!!
If you have questions about either, please contact Sarah Andrews, the Stanford Bookstore's Events Coordinator, at (650) 725-6136 x.359 or s.andrews@bookstore.stanford.org
On Thursday, May 3, the math department is hosting a get-together for math majors, SUMO members, math faculty, and any students interested in math! This will be held on the 3rd floor of the math building.
5:30 - 6:30: Free pizza and drinks! Talk with other students, as well as the professors who currently advise undergraduate math majors! The math department will also be showing a short video on careers in math.
6:30 - whenever: Games Night! That's right, the last games night was so much fun that we're having another one! Bring yourselves and bring your friends, as well as board games and card games, for another fun-filled evening. We will have a variety of games including Risk, chess, Set, Taboo, and, the ever-popular, Candyland.
You're welcome to come for both parts or just one of them! Or just drop by for a few minutes to talk with people! Hope to see you all there!
Brian Greene, author of the bestseller The Elegant Universe will give a public lecture with the same title. This talk will discuss the significance of strings. For more information, please see this poster.
Tickets for this talk are normally $8 and are available at the Tresidder Ticket Office. Math majors may obtain free tickets from Karen in the math department. SUMO will provide subsidized tickets for Stanford undergraduates who are not math majors; the subsidized tickets will be $4. If you are interested in a $4 ticket, please e-mail Alex Pekker at apekker@stanford.edu by noon on Friday, April 20.
Also, ushers and various assistants are needed between 6:30 and 9:30 PM. The salary will be $15 per hour. If you are interested, please contact Nadia at nadia@math.stanford.edu
The time has come to elect SUMO's president for next year! The nominees are
To find out more about the nominees and to vote, click here.
Voting will end on Wednesday, April 25, at 5:00 PM. In order to vote, you need a valid leland ID, and you must be on the SUMO list.
For those who don't know, ARML stands for the American Regions Mathematics League and is an annual national contest held simultaneously at multiple sites in the U.S. For more information, visit the official ARML site or the SFBA ARML team page. Last year, the SFBA team tied for first.
For more information about practices, please click here.
As many of you know, the math department provides tutoring for the 50's series that is staffed by undergraduates. If you'd like to spend a few hours a week helping your fellow students (and getting paid for it), send an email to Julie Levandosky (jlev@stanford.edu) with short responses to the following questions by Saturday, April 21 at 5pm:
We're going to be holding elections for next year's officers, so we're looking for nominations! The plan is for the new officers to start helping out with events and organization this quarter and then to take over fully next year.
Below is a description of each position along with a list of people you can for more information.
You're welcome to nominate yourself or other people, and you can nominate people for multiple positions. Nominees must be undergraduates or coterms (but they do not have to be math majors). Please send all nominations to Janet at jjchen@stanford.edu by Wednesday, April 18, and include the e-mail addresses of the people you're nominating.
SECRETARY-TREASURER
Deal with $$$ and various administrative issues. Also help
with publicity, taking pictures, etc.
CONTACT:
Alex (apekker) or
Jonathan (sadko)
STANFORD PROGRAM CHAIRS (2-3)
Plan and organize events targeted toward students. These
include the Speaker Series and social
events, such as tea with
the math department and Games Night. We also host some other
random events, such as discussions of mathematical opportunities. This is a great
way to meet professors!
CONTACT:
Janet (jjchen),
Alex (apekker), or
Jonathan (sadko)
HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM CHAIRS (2-3)
Plan and organize the high school programs -- tutoring and the
Stanford Explorations Series (SES).
Tutoring is currently
only for students at Menlo-Atherton High School, but there are
possibilities for expansion. SES is a program consisting of
weekly presentations for high school students. We try to have
talks on different areas of math and science, so you also get
to meet faculty members from lots of different departments!
CONTACT:
Darrick (dchang),
Ani (amanicha),
Calvin (cmiaw), or
Sam (hkchuen)
CONTEST CHAIRS (2-3)
Work with Harvard, MIT, and Rice students to organize the
annual Stanford Math Tournament (a contest for
high school students). Also work with some local teachers to help
organize coaching for ARML practices.
CONTACT:
Janet (jjchen),
Donald (dying), or
Daniel (prdwong)
Come one, come all, to the first ever SUMO Games Night! Join your fellow math-enthusiasts (or anyone else who wants to show up) for an evening of board games, card games, food, and drinks! We'll have Go, chess, Diplomacy, Set, several decks of playing cards, and some others as well. And, of course, bring any games you want, too!
If you'd like to come, it would be great if you could e-mail Jonathan at sadko@stanford.edu to let him know, so we have an idea of how much food to get. However, this isn't absolutely necessary - if it's Thursday night and you realize you forgot to write back, feel free to head on over.
This year, Ron Graham will be speaking; his talk is titled "Searching for the Shortest Network: A Math Lecture for the Public." For more information, please see his abstract and biographical info.