From “Touring a Torus” to a contest for bad math puns,
everything mathematical is here on Saturday as the College hosts the Hudson River
Undergraduate Mathematics Conference, a gathering of about 300 undergraduates and faculty
from around the Northeast.
Keynote speaker Joseph A. Gallian of the University of Minnesota,
Duluth, will talk on “Touring a Torus” on Saturday at 11:15 a.m. in Memorial
Chapel.
A dozen Union students are to give presentations. This is the first time
Union has hosted the five-year-old event, which draws students from up to 80 institutions
in the Northeast, said Prof. William Zwicker, an organizer.
Student and faculty presentations will take place in three parallel
sessions in Humanities and Social Sciences: 10 to 11 a.m., 2 to 3 p.m. and 3:30 to 4:30
p.m.
A torus, by the way, is a surface shaped “like the glaze on a
glazed doughnut,” said Zwicker. One mathematical pun is on the back of the conference
tee shirt next to a picture of a torus: “Nott holely uninteresting.”