Blogtrek

Mathematics Conference

I took time out from my normal routine to go to a national mathematics conference in Baltimore last week. Baltimore's Inner Harbor is an attractive place. It is especially attractive at night where I saw the full moon hanging alongside the World Trade Center as a backdrop to the tall shafts of the frigate Constitution. The World Trade Center is an interesting building. It is five-sided, with a pentagon-shaped base, so that it looks attractive from any angle, since you always see at least two sides. It is unfortunate that its name and shape both remind us of a horror that occurred nearly a year and a half ago.

The conference brought me back to my graduate school days. I attended 44 talks, including three major addresses, and interviewed for several jobs. The most interesting talk was by Joe Silverman, who showed that elliptic curves occur all over the place in mathematics. The last presentation showed how laptop computers could be used to demonstrate mathematical concepts such as the graphs of quadratic and cubic equations. I wish I had access to some of those tools when I was growing up.