Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Crocheting Mathematics Through Covid-19, Beyza C. Aslan

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

As it is often said, something good often comes out of most bad situations. The time I spent during COVID-19, at home and isolated with my two children, brought out one secret passion in me: crocheting. Not only did it help me pass the time in a sane and productive way, but also it gave me a new goal in life. It connected my math side with my artistic side. It gave me a new perspective to look at math, and helped me help others see math in a positive way.

Practical Chaos: Using Dynamical Systems To Encrypt Audio And Visual Data, Julia Ruiter

Scripps Senior Theses

Although dynamical systems have a multitude of classical uses in physics and applied mathematics, new research in theoretical computer science shows that dynamical systems can also be used as a highly secure method of encrypting data. Properties of Lorenz and similar systems of equations yield chaotic outputs that are good at masking the underlying data both physically and mathematically. This paper aims to show how Lorenz systems may be used to encrypt text and image data, as well as provide a framework for how physical mechanisms may be built using these properties to transmit encrypted wave signals.

An Introduction To Fourier Analysis With Applications To Music, Nathan Lenssen, Deanna Needell

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In our modern world, we are often faced with problems in which a traditionally analog signal is discretized to enable computer analysis. A fundamental tool used by mathematicians, engineers, and scientists in this context is the discrete Fourier transform (DFT), which allows us to analyze individual frequency components of digital signals. In this paper we develop the discrete Fourier transform from basic calculus, providing the reader with the setup to understand how the DFT can be used to analyze a musical signal for chord structure. By investigating the DFT alongside an application in music processing, we gain an appreciation for …

Squaring, Cubing, And Cube Rooting, Arthur T. Benjamin

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

We present mentally efficient algorithms for mentally squaring and cubing 2-digit and 3-digit numbers and for finding cube roots of numbers with 2-digit or 3-digit answers.

An Amazing Mathematical Card Trick, Arthur T. Benjamin

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

A magician gives a member of the audience 20 cards to shuffle. After the cards are thoroughly mixed, the magician goes through the deck two cards at a time, sometimes putting the two cards face to face, sometimes back to back, and sometimes in the same direction. Before dealing each pair of cards into a pile, he asks random members of the audience if the pair should be flipped over or not. He goes through the pile again four cards at a time and before each group of four is dealt to a pile, the audience gets to decide whether …

Greedy Signal Recovery Review, Deanna Needell, Joel A. Tropp, Roman Vershynin

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

The two major approaches to sparse recovery are L1-minimization and greedy methods. Recently, Needell and Vershynin developed Regularized Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (ROMP) that has bridged the gap between these two approaches. ROMP is the first stable greedy algorithm providing uniform guarantees.

Even more recently, Needell and Tropp developed the stable greedy algorithm Compressive Sampling Matching Pursuit (CoSaMP). CoSaMP provides uniform guarantees and improves upon the stability bounds and RIC requirements of ROMP. CoSaMP offers rigorous bounds on computational cost and storage. In many cases, the running time is just O(NlogN), where N is the ambient dimension of the signal. This …

The Centrality Of Mathematics In The History Of Western Thought, Judith V. Grabiner

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

This article explores the interplay of mathematics and philosophy in Western thought as well as applications to other fields.