Math Community Guide: 2014 Pi Mu Epsilon Ceremony

Pi-Mu-Epsilon
The Mathematics Honor Society
Massachusetts Gamma Chapter
Bridgewater State University

Established on May 10, 1972
by the late Dr. Murray Abramson
then chair of the Mathematics and Computer Science Department

Historic Documents

1987 Departmental Memo
1988 Departmental Memo

Click to view Guest Book

Related Links:

What is Pi Mu Epsilon?
Abramson Colloquium Speaker List, 1983-2013

Current Advisors

Dr. Jacqueline Anderson, 2013-
      present
Dr. Annela Kelly, 2013-present
Dr. Laura Gross, 2010-present

Previous Advisors

Dr. Ward Heilman, 2004-2010
Professor Thomas Moore, 1980-2003
Dr. Murray Abramson, 1972-1979

BSU Pi Mu Epsilon Home

Speaker: Dr. Erik Demaine, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT

Title: Algorithms Meet Art, Puzzles, and Magic

Abstract

When I was six years old, my father Martin Demaine and I designed and made puzzles as the Erik and Dad Puzzle Company, which distributed to toy stores across Canada. So began our journey into the interactions between algorithms and the arts (here, puzzle design). More and more, we find that our mathematical research and artistic projects converge, with the artistic side inspiring the mathematical side and vice versa. Mathematics itself is an art form, and through other media such as sculpture, puzzles, and magic, the beauty of mathematics can be brought to a wider audience. These artistic endeavors also provide us with deeper insights into the underlying mathematics, by providing physical realizations of objects under consideration, by pointing to interesting special cases and directions to explore, and by suggesting new problems to solve (such as the metapuzzle of how to solve a puzzle). This talk will give several examples in each category, from how our first font design led to building transforming robots, to how studying curved creases in origami led to sculptures at MoMA. The audience will be expected to participate in some live magic demonstrations.

Dr. Demaine's Biography:

Erik Demaine is a Professor in Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Demaine's research interests range throughout algorithms, from data structures for improving web searches to the geometry of understanding how proteins fold to the computational difficulty of playing games. He received a MacArthur Fellowship as a “computational geometer tackling and solving difficult problems related to folding and bending—moving readily between the theoretical and the playful, with a keen eye to revealing the former in the latter”. He appears in the recent origami documentary Between the Folds, cowrote a book about the theory of folding (Geometric Folding Algorithms), and a book about the computational complexity of games (Games, Puzzles, and Computation). His interests span the connections between mathematics and art, particularly sculpture and performance, including curved-crease sculptures in the permanent collection of Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.

Related Links:

Curved-Crease Sculpture by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine

History of Curved Origami Sculpture

More about Erik Demaine

Selected Publications:

Approximation algorithms via contraction decomposition, by Erik D. Demaine, MohammadTaghi Hajiaghayi, Bojan Mohar. Ljubljana : Univ. of Ljubljana, Inst. of Mathematics, Physics and Mechanics, Dep. of Mathematics, 2006.

Between the folds: a film about finding inspiration in unexpected places [Video]. Performers include Dr .Erik Demaine, Marty Demaine, and others. Call Number: TT870 .B48 2009. Request at Circulation Desk.Martin Demaine

Fixed-parameter algorithms for the (k, r)-center in planar graphs and map graphs, by Erik D. Demaine, Bergen: Dept. of Informatics, Univ. of Bergen, 2003.

Games, puzzles, and computation, by Robert A Hearn; Erik D Demaine, Wellesley, Mass.: A K Peters, Ltd., 2009.

Geometric folding algorithms: linkages, origami, polyhedra, by Erik D Demaine and Joseph O'Rourke, New York : Cambridge University Press, 2007.

The geometry of origami : from science to sculpture, by Erik D Demaine, Museum of Mathematics.; Simons Foundation. [DVD] New York, NY: Museum of Mathematics, 2011.

A lifetime of puzzles: a collection of puzzles in honor of Martin Gardner's 90th birthday, by Martin Gardner, Erik D Demaine, Martin L Demaine, and Tom Rodgers, Wellesley, Mass.: A K Peters, 2008.