Recreational Mathematics Colloquium I

Aviezri Fraenkel is a professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, currently Gorenstein Visiting Professor at Queens College, Queens, NY. He has published 200 papers and book chapters in mathematics, computer science, information storage and retrieval, and Judaica.

He is a member of the Editorial Board of Discrete Math., Electronic J. of Combinatorics, Theoretical Computer Science, Internat. J. of Appl. Math., Internat. Computer Games Assoc. J.; and on the Advisory Board of INTEGERS Electronic J. of Combinatorial Number Theory. Member of the Electronic Publishing Committee of the European Mathematical Society.

Selected Honors: Feder Foundation Prize for initiating and creating the Res\-ponsa Project (1972); Quality Initiative Citation to the Responsa Project for creative, high-quality and visionary projects to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel (1998); The Fraenkel Festschrift: Electronic J. Combinatorics, vol. 8(2); Euler Medal recipient of the Institute for Combinatorics and Its Applications 2005; Recipient of WEIZAC Medal for the WEIZAC computer project, designated as IEEE Milestone (2006); Israel Prize to the Responsa Project (2007).

Experience:
Gustavus Adolphus College, Saint Peter, MN, Associate Professor: 2001 to present, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science.
University of California, Berkeley, Lecturer: Spring 1992 to Spring 1996, Division of Computer Science.
Post-doc: Fall 1993 to Spring 1994, Department of Mathematics.

Education:
University of California, Berkeley: Ph.D. in Computer Science, 1991.
Cornell University: B.S. in Electrical Engineering, 1985.

Interests:
Discrete mathematics and computer science, Game theory, Probability and stochastic processes, Recreational mathematics, Combinatorics, Queueing theory, Randomness and Computation.

Publications:
Lessons in Play: An Introduction to the Combinatorial Game Theory, with Michael Albert and Richard Nowakowski, A K Peters, Natick, MA, February 2007.
Puzzlers’ Tribute: Feast for the Mind, with Tom Rodgers (editors), A K Peters, Natick, MA, December 2001.
Mathematical Go: Chilling Gets the Last Point, with Elwyn Berlekamp, A K Peters, Natick, MA, January 1994. Also in paperback as Mathematical Go Endgames: Nightmares For the Professional Go Player, Ishi Press International, San Jose, CA, December 1993. In Japanese as Igo no Sempo: Yose no Kenkyu, Translation by Yoshikawa Takeshiro, Toppan, Tokyo, Japan, November 1994.

Education and Employment Information:
B.Sc. (Hons), 1974, University of Calgary;
M.Sc. (Mathematics), 1975, University of Calgary (advisor: R.K.Guy);
Ph.D. (Mathematics), 1978, University of Calgary (advisor: R.K.Guy).
1998-2003: Chair, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Dalhousie University.
1992-present: Full Professor, Dalhousie University.
1987-1992: Associate Professor, Dalhousie University.
1983: Awarded tenure, Dalhousie University.
1979-1987: Assistant Professor, Dalhousie University.
1978-1979: Sessional Instructor, University of Calgary.

Research Interests:
Combinatorial games, graph theory, ordered sets.

Books, books edited and chapters in books:
M. Albert, RJN, D. Wolfe, Lessons in Play; AK Peters, 2006.
M. Albert, RJN (editors), More Games of No Chance 3; to appear, Cambridge University Press, 2007.
RJN (editor), More Games of No Chance; Cambridge University Press, 2002.
RJN (editor), Games of No Chance; Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Publications 29, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
RJN, «… Welter’s game, sylver coinage, dots-and-boxes, …», Combinatorial Games, Proceedings of symposia in applied mathematics 43, 1991; AMS Short Course Lecture Notes, R. K. Guy (editor), pp. 155-182.

Michele Emmer is full professor of mathematics at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Dipartimento di Matematica. His area of activity were PDE and minimal surfaces, computer graphics, mathematics and arts, mathematics and culture, films and videos.

Member of the board of the Journal “Leonardo: art, science and technology”, MIT Press Filmaker, almost all his movies in the series “Art and Math” have been broadcasted by the State Italian television and other television; all the videos are distributed in many countries in the various version (english, french, spanish, italian, japanese). Homage in several Film Festivals: Bellaria, Bergamo, Rome Animation, Torino Museo del cinema, La Villette, Paris, Festival in Pavia, Georges at Centre Pompidou.

He has organized several exhibitions and conferences on the topic of «Art and Mathematics» including the annual conference on «Mathematics and Culture» at the University of Venice; http://www.mat.uniroma1.it/ ; the exhibitions and conferences on M.C. Escher (1985 and 1998) at the University of Rome; the section on Space at the Biennal of Venice (1986), the travelling exhibition “The Eye of Horus” (Roma, Bologna, Milano, Parma (1989); he was responsable for the Exhibition and congress on “Math & art”, Bologna, 2000.

Editor of the series «Mathematics and Culture» by Springer verlag; the series The Visual Mind by MIT press; video series Video math by Springer Verlag.

Last books: Visibili armonie arte cinema teatro matematica, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2006; The Visual Mind 2, MIT Press, 2006; Mathematics and Culture V, Springer verlag, 2006; a chapter in Venise , Flammarion, Paris, 2006, Matematica e Cultura 2007, Springer, 2007.

He received in 1998 the Galileo award from the Italian Math Association for best popularization of Mathematics. In 2004 the Pitagora award. He is member of the Commission for the popularization of math of the European Math Society.

Education:
University of Notre Dame, B.A. 1960 (mathematics); University of California, Berkeley, M.A. 1962, Ph.D. 1964 (mathematics)

Teaching Experience:

Benjamin Peirce Instructor, Harvard, 1964-6;
Research Associate, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1966-7;
Brown University: Asst. Prof. 1967, Assoc. Prof. 1970, Professor 1973
Walter H. Annenberg Professor of the Year 1998, Brown University
G. Leonard Baker Visiting Professor of Mathmatics, Yale, Fall 1998
Visiting Professor, University of Notre Dame, Fall 2001
Visiting Professor, UCLA, Winter 2002
Visiting Professor, Univesity of Georgia Mathematics Department and College of Education, Spring 2006
Royce Family Professor in Teaching Excellence, 2005-2008

Teaching Awards:
Danforth (1960) and Woodrow Wilson (1959) Fellowships;
Senior Teaching Citation, 1976 (chosen by the Brown senior class);
Lester Ford Award 1978 (for outstanding expository writing);
Joseph Priestley Medallion, Dickinson College 1987 (science award);
Bray Award for Teaching Excellence in Sciences, Brown 1993 (faculty);
Mathematical Association of America Northeastern Section Award 1995;
MAA National Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics 1996 (one of three awarded annually).
Doctor of Science, honoris causa, Fairfield University, 1998;
Pew Scholar, Carnegie Foundation Teaching Academy, 1999;
Carnegie Fellow, Carnegie Foundation, 1999-2000;
Doctor of Science, Honoris Causa, Rhode Island College, 2001;
NSF Director’s Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholar, 2004.

Publications Directly Related to Teaching:
International Congress of Mathematicians, Helsinki, 1978, invited address in the section on Pedagogy, Computer Animation and the Geometry of Surfaces in 3- and 4-Space (the first such presentation to involve graphics).
Linear Algebra Through Geometry (with John Wermer), Springer-Verlag 1983, revised and expanded second edition 1991.
EDGE-The Educational Differential Geometry Environment, (with Richard Schwartz) 1987 (reworking and expansion of a student final project).
Interactive Geometry and Multivariable Calculus on the Internet, CBMS Issues in Mathematics Education, Volume 14 (2007), 17-31.
Algebraic Thinking and Geometric Thinking, Seventieth Annual NCTM Yearbook (2008).
Beyond the Third Dimension, Scientific American Library 1990, 1996.
Nine other articles on teaching (among 100 bibliography items).

Service:
Assoc. Editorships: Mathematics Magazine 1978-81, Amer. Math. Monthly 1982-85, Geometriae Dedicata 1986-95, Communications in Visual Mathematics 1996-.
Acting Dean of Student Affairs, Brown, 1970-71.
National Committee: Teaching Assistants and Part-Time Instructors.
Board Memberships: Society for Values in Higher Education; CommonCause of RI; Mathematical Association of America, President, 1999-2000.

Richard Kenneth Guy (born 1916, Nuneaton, Warwickshire) is a British mathematician, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Calgary.

He is best known for co-authorship (with John Conway and Elwyn Berlekamp) of Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays and authorship of Unsolved Problems in Number Theory (ISBN 0-387-94289-0), but he has also published over 100 papers and books covering combinatorial game theory, number theory and graph theory.

He is said to have developed the partially tongue-in-cheek “Strong Law of Small Numbers,” which says there are not enough small integers available for the many tasks assigned to them thus explaining many coincidences and patterns found among numerous cultures.

Additionally, around 1959, Guy discovered a unistable polyhedron having only 19 faces; no such construct with fewer faces has yet been found.

Guy is also a notable figure in the field of chess endgame studies. He composed around 200 studies, and was co-inventor of the Guy-Blandford-Roycroft code for classifying studies. He also served as the endgame study editor for the British Chess Magazine from 1948 to 1951.

Guy is one of the few mathematicians with an Erdos number of 1.

Selected publications:
Richard K. Guy: Aviezri Fraenkel and Combinatorial Games. Electr. J. Comb. 8(2): (2001)
Béla Bollobás, Richard K. Guy: Equitable and proportional coloring of trees. J. Comb. Theory, Ser. B 34(2): 177-186 (1983) Richard K. Guy, Gerhard Ringel: Triangular imbedding of Kn – K6. J. Comb. Theory, Ser. B 21(2): 140-145 (1976)