Women in Mathematics (WIM) Electronic Newsletter

Fall 2000, Issue 1

August 31, 2000

http://www.math.umd.edu/~wim/Fall00/Issue1.html

Second Annual WIM Summer Picnic

The second annual WIM summer picnic was held this June, with plenty of chips and watermelon for all!  This event was sponsored by the Graduate Student Government and was open to all faculty and staff in our department.  We took this opportunity to recognize the contributions of everyone who helped with WIM events throughout the 1999-2000 school year, organizing, giving talks, and sitting on discussion panels.  Pictures of the picnic will soon be available on our website, so go see everyone having fun in the sun.

WIM Graduate Student Seminar Update

Yvonne Shashoua will be giving the first WIM Graduate Student Seminar of the new school year on Wednesday, September 6 at 4:00 pm in room 1310 in the Mathematics building.  Everyone interested is encouraged to attend.

"The Mathematics of Maybe: An Introduction to Fuzzy Logic"

Abstract:

Fuzzy logic is a widely studied subject area with applications to many different fields.  The mathematical basis for fuzzy logic has not been fully established, and there are many foundational problems that remain open.  My talk will introduce the subject of fuzzy logic as a current research area in mathematics.  Fuzzy logic will be compared with classical logic in terms of the assumptions made and the results obtained.  The talk will be geared to beginning graduate students.  No prior knowledge of logic will be assumed.

WIM Brown Bag Lunches

The fiirst brown bag lunch of the semester will be Tuesday, September 12th from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in room 2400.

These lunches are designed to let women graduate students in the Mathematics department get to know one another in an informal setting and to organize WIM events like the WIM seminar.  We especially welcome the women who are new this year to come meet everyone and find out about our group.


What We're Reading Now

Angles of Reflection: Logic and a Mother's Love by Joan L. Richards (W.H. Freeman, 2000)

This autobiographical book about a women mathematical historian and mother of two children is about the contradictory forces that act on women in academics.  As a historian, she saw that the purity of thought of her subject, Victorian mathematician Augustus DeMorgan, came with isolation from his family and children who were cared for by his wife, Sophia.  Over the course of two particularly difficult years in her life, Richards realizes that this isolation from the messiness of life can be a weakness, as well as a strength, of the discipline of mathematics.  This review is based on that in the newsletter of the Association for Women in Mathematics, which was very enthusiastic about this book.

Read any good books lately? If you have something you'd like to suggest, please let us know! You can send author, title, and publisher information to ktb@math.umd.edu so the editor (a voracious reader) can sink her teeth into it, or you can write the review yourself and send it to wim@math.umd.edu in whatever format is most convenient.


A Request

WIM received an e-mail from a sixth-grader at William N. DeBerry school who would like someone to talk to via e-mail, to thelp her with her math skills and to tell her about university life here in College Park.  If anyone is interested in contacting Missy, please write to wim@math.umd.edu for her e-mail address.

Editor: Karen Ball (ktb@math.umd.edu)

Organization: WIM (wim@math.umd.edu or http://www.math.umd.edu/~wim)
Last modified: Thu. Aug. 31 17:04 2000