Calculate This Presidential Debate Into Your Schedule
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass - Popular math professors Colin Adams and Tom Garrity at Williams College will debate the next president of the "United States of Mathematics" on Saturday, Oct. 25, at 10 a.m. in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall on the Williams College campus.This years Family Days Faculty lecture will feature an assuredly hilarious contention between the figure-eight knot, which represents new mathematics, and the changes we believe in, and the Euclidean algorithm, which represents the stability originating from the traditional roots of mathematics. Which candidate will come out on top and claim empirical glory in this bare-knuckled debate? Only the votes will tell.
Adams, the Thomas T. Read Professor of Mathematics, is interested and prolifically published in the field of the mathematical theory of knots, their applications and their connections with hyperbolic geometry. He is the author of "The Knot Book," an elementary introduction to knot theory, and a co-author of "How to Ace Calculus: The Streetwise Guide," as well as "How to Ace the Rest of Calculus: The Streetwise Guide." Adams is a recipient of the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics and a proponent o the SMALL program at Williams. He was also a Sigma Xi Distinguished lecturer for 2000-02, and recipient of multiple National Science Foundation grants for his work on hyperbolic-3 manifolds. Adams authors "Mathematically Bent," a humor column that appears in the Mathematical Intelligencer.
Adams received his B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978 and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1983.
Garrity's research focuses on algebraic and differential geometry in number theory. Garrity was the 2004 winner of the distinguished Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. Garrity has been instrumental in the Williams SMALL undergraduate research program. Garrity's All the Mathematics You Missed (But Need to Know for Graduate School)," published by Cambridge University Press, is a bestseller among technical books in mathematics.
Garrity graduated from the University of Texas in 1981, earning both a B.A. with highest honors in philosophy and a B.S. with highest honors in mathematics. He received his Ph.D. from Brown University in 1986. Before coming to Williams in 1989, he held the post-doctoral position of G.C. Evans Instructor of Mathematics at Rice University, where he received the Nicolas Salgo Outstanding Teacher Award.
Both professors are clearly prepared for what will assuredly be an epic and giggle-filled contest of mathematical clout. No particular mathematical or political background assumed. This event is free and open to the public.
