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| 2025-2026 Academic Year | ||
| The first talk of the 2025-2026 school year was given by Charles Widger on Tuesday, September 30. The topic: Time Series Analysis. Here are the slides for this talk. (Last modified on 09/28/25 at 11:35.) | Luke Rawlings spoke on Tuesday, October 7. The topic: Not Pascal's Triangle is Probably Not a Triangle. | Ashle Ka spoke about a mathematical model in economics on Tuesday, October 14. The topic: Parfit's Repugnant Conclusion (and Can We Avoid It?) Here are the slides for this talk. (Last modified on 10/14/25 at 20:38.) |
| Tom Crawford spoke on Tuesday, October 21. The topic: Knot Theory. Here are the slides for this talk. (Last modified on 10/23/25 at 17:13.) | Trevor Gamble spoke on Tuesday, October 28. The topic: Is Our Universe Inside Of a Black Hole? Arguments For And Against. | Tom Crawford spoke on Tuesday, November 4. The topic: Knot Theory and Dehn Surgery. |
| Charles Widger spoke on Tuesday, November 18. The topic: Storing Government Classified Data. He discussed how classified materials are to be stored by contractors doing United States government work. Here are the slides for this talk. (Last modified on 11/19/25 at 10:50.) | Audrey Budlong spoke on Tuesday, November 25. The topic: A New Eye on the Universe: How Rubin Transforms Our Cosmic Story. | Larry Susanka spoke on December 2, 2025. The topic: The evolution of the idea of number from the Greek tradition to more modern approaches: steps and motivation. Here is the introductory chapter of a book I'm writing containing the material of this talk (and much more). (Last modified on 01/26/26 at 08:54.) |
| Trevor Gamble spoke on January 13, 2026. The topic: Specialized Rotations in Space: The SU(2) Matrices | Eckart Schmidt spoke on Tuesday, January 20, 2026. His topic: Deep Impact: Ready for the next one? | Steve Ziskind spoke on Tuesday, January 27. The title of the talk was Turing and Gödel. Steve discussed topics in computer science and logic. Here are the slides for this talk. (Last modified on 01/27/26 at 06:43.) |
| Larry Curnutt will spoke on Tuesday, February 3, 2026. The title of the talk was Fixed Points Part 1. Here are the slides for this talk. (Last modified on 02/7/26 at 16:31.) | Larry Curnutt spoke on Tuesday, February 10, 2026. The title of the talk was Fixed Points Part 2.Here are the slides for this week's talk. (Last modified on 02/7/26 at 16:31.) | Luke Rawlings spoke on Tuesday, February 17. The title of the talk was TO BE DETERMINED (or not) and that about sums it up. However Luke was immensely entertaining, as always. |
| Trevor Gamble spoke on Tuesday, February 24, 2026. The title of the talk was Specialized Rotations in Space: The SU(2) Matrices (Part 1 of 5, Clean Version). | Tim Crawford spoke on Tuesday, March 10, 2026. The topic of this talk was Littlewood Polynomials. Here are the slides for this his talk. (Last modified on 03/12/26 at 14:41.) Here is a rather large (26MB) imagefile associated with the talk. (Last modified on 03/17/26 at 11:51.) | Demetria Kim spoke on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. The talk was about properties of cross products and determinants. |
| Steve Ziskind spoke on Tuesday, April 14, 2026. This was the first of at least three talks on this topic. The title: 1+1=1, The Banach-Tarski Paradox (Part 1). | Steve Ziskind spoke on Tuesday, April 21, 2026. This was the second of three talks on this topic. The title: 1+1=1, The Banach-Tarski Paradox (Part 2). | Steve Ziskind spoke on Tuesday, April 21, 2026. This was the third of three talks on this topic. The title: 1+1=1, The Banach-Tarski Paradox (Part 3). Various pdfs relevant to these talks may be found below. Free Groups. (Last modified on 04/19/26 at 13:11. A Non-Measurable Set. (Last modified on 04/19/26 at 13:11. The Cardinality of the Irrationals. (Last modified on 04/19/26 at 13:11. The Banach-Tarski Paradox. (Last modified on 04/28/26 at 19:31. Countability Basics. (Last modified on 04/19/26 at 13:11. The Banach-Schroeder-Bernstein Theorem. (Last modified on 04/19/26 at 13:11. Author Kaseorg on the Banack-Tarski Paradox. (Last modified on 04/19/26 at 13:11. |
| Eckart Schmidt spoke on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. The title: Monopropellants for Space Research. | Larry Curnutt spoke on Tuesday, May 12, 2026. The title: The Distribution of Primes and The Twin Prime Conjecture. Slides for this talk. (Last modified on 05/13/26 at 07:44.) | Charles Widger spoke about Martingales on Tuesday, May 19, 2026. Slides for this talk. (Last modified on 05/20/26 at 13:20.) |
| Trevor Gamble and Zoe Eicher spoke on Tuesday, May 26, 2026. They talked about Rotations in Space and Rodrigues' Formula among a variety of other things. | Trevor Gamble spoke on Tuesday, June 2, 2026 on Specialized Rotations in Space: The SU(2) Matrices (Part x of N, Artemis and "i") | Tuesday, June 9, 2026 Larry Susanka spoke about Historical Approaches to the Existence and Nature of Abstract Objects in Mathematics. Here are the slides for this talk. (Last modified on 06/9/26 at 10:47.) |
| Tuesday, June 16, 2026 Audrey Dijeau spoke at the Bellevue College Planetarium. The topic: Galaxies, AGN, citizen science and how students can get involved. The conversation will also touch on Dijeau's research on Low Redshift Extended Emission Line Nebulae/Quasar Ionization Echoes. Here is a slide for this talk. (Last modified on 06/16/26 at 19:32.) | ||
| 2024-2025 Academic Year | ||
| On Tuesday, October 8 Trevor Gamble spoke. His topic: The Hale-Bopp Comet, and the Mathematics of Orbits. | On Tuesday, October 15 Trevor Gamble continued. His topic: The Hale-Bopp Comet, and the Mathematics of Orbits. | Our speaker for October 21 was Steve Ziskind. The title: Probability and the Weak Law of Large Numbers - Part 1. This was the first of three talks. Much of this first talk provided a basic background in probability. Here are the slides for these three talks. (Last modified on 11/1/24 at 09:46.) |
| Our speaker for October 28 was again Steve Ziskind. The title: Probability and the Weak Law of Large Numbers - Part 2. | Our speaker for November 5 was Steve Ziskind, giving his third and final talk on a probabilistic proof of the Weierstrass Polynomial Approximation Theorem. The title: Probability and the Weak Law of Large Numbers - Part 3. | Our speaker for November 12 was Luke Rawlings. His topic: Algebraic Geometry or, perhaps, Geometric Algebra. |
| On November 26 Charles Widger spoke. His topic: On Euler: A discussion of the Life and Work of Leonhard Euler. Here are his slides. (Last modified on 12/2/24 at 07:57.) | On December 3 Sean Reynolds spoke. His topic: Civil Engineering and Nuclear Power. | The first talk of 2025 was given by Larry Curnutt on January 21. His topic: Weirdness In Real Analysis. Larry's notes may be found here. (Last modified on 01/17/25 at 09:34.) |
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On January 28 Larry Susanka gave the 300th talk of this colloquium series. The title: Klein's Erlangen Program. While telling this story, a few words were said about the evolution of the concept of symmetry in mathematical structures in modern form, from the inspiration of Evariste Galois to the Erlangen program of Felix Klein, the vision of Bernhard Riemann, the groups and algebras of Sophus Lie, the physical applications implicit in the work of Emmy Noether and on to Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity, Murray Gell-Mann's "Eightfold Way" and string theory. All in 50 minutes. Notes for this talk may be found here. (Last modified on 02/25/25 at 11:33.) (Note: The talk began with a brief discussion of previous incarnations of this series and their 37 different speakers. The list of previous speakers may be found Here. (Last modified on 04/3/25 at 18:47.) |
On February 11 Robert Hobbs spoke. He described two experiments, with data from them to be discussed in a later talk. | On February 18 Elena Tolkova spoke. Her topic: "Tides, Heights, and Numerical Modeling." |
| On February 25 Tom Crawford spoke. His topic: "Visualizing Different* 2 and 3 Dimensional Spaces." Here are a few slides for this talk. (Last modified on 02/28/25 at 11:01.) | On March 11 Charles Widger spoke. His topic: "About Number Theory." | On March 18 Charles Widger continued. His topic: "About Number Theory." Slides for this and the preceding talk can be found Here. (Last modified on 03/18/25 at 17:02.) |
| On Tuesday April 15 Larry Susanka spoke. The topic was The Peano Axioms and the Natural Numbers. The slides for this talk were taken from a few pages of a short book found here. (Last modified on 04/24/25 at 16:07.) | On Tuesday April 22 Larry Susanka finished on the topic The Peano Axioms and the Natural Numbers. The slides for this talk may be found here. (Last modified on 04/22/25 at 19:56.) | Steve Ziskind spoke on May 6. His topic: Curvature: Euler and The Boeing Company.
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| Trevor Gamble spoke on May 13. His topic: Space Junk: Do We Care (also Kepler's Orbit). | Steve Ziskind spoke on May 20. He concluded his remarks on Curvature: Euler and Boeing. Notes for this and his preceding talk may be found here. (Last modified on 05/4/25 at 12:22.) | Tom Crawford spoke on May 27. His topic was Gerrymandering: The Math Shaping Elections. Tom's notes may be found here. (Last modified on 06/3/25 at 15:55.) |
| Brian Stephanik spoke on June 3. His topic was Potential energy diagrams and probability density in classical and quantum mechanics. Brian's notes may be found here. (Last modified on 06/3/25 at 16:26.) | Charles Widger spoke on June 10. His topic was Information Theory Part 1. | Charles Widger spoke on June 17. He gave the second of two talks: Information Theory Part 2.
Notes for Part 1 can be found here. (Last modified on 06/16/25 at 12:48.) Notes for Part 2 can be found here. (Last modified on 06/16/25 at 12:48.) |
| 2023-2024 Academic Year | ||
| The first talk of the school year was given by Larry Susanka on September 26. The topic was "Gamma matrices and the Dirac algebra." The definition and properties of this 16-dimensional matrix algebra were explored, with MATLAB code (Last modified on 09/25/23 at 15:22) used to carry out calculations. The slides for this talk are provided here. (Last modified on 09/26/23 at 19:01.) | Victor Polinger spoke on Tuesday, October 3. The topic was "How Physicists use Gamma matrices and the Dirac algebra." Slides for this talk can be found here. (Last modified on 10/4/23 at 10:52) | Trevor Gamble spoke on Tuesday, October 10 at 2 pm. The topic was "Is the universe infinite? Fine-tuned constants, and other mathematical details" |
| Steve Ziskind spoke on Tuesday, October 17 on "Comparing the Size of (Large) Sets" | Steve Ziskind spoke on Tuesday, October 24 at 2 pm. He explored, further, "Comparing the Size of (Large) Sets." Slides for this talk may be found here. (Last modified on 10/25/23 at 13:56) | On Tuesday, October 31, Larry Susanka spoke on "Modern Set Theory and Mathematical Foundations." This one-hour talk was expository, with some historical notes. The Zermelo-Fraenkel Axioms, which provide foundation for most of modern mathematics, were then listed and briefly discussed. Here are the slides for this talk. (Last modified on 10/31/23 at 15:45) |
| On Tuesday, November 7, Charlie Keller spoke. The topic was "Isotope Cosmology and Geology." | On Tuesday, November 14, Tim Winchester spoke. The title of his talk: "Neutrino Masses: Why we thought neutrinos were massless, how we know they're not and why it matters, like, potentially a lot, and what we are doing about it." |
On Tuesday, November 21, Luke Rawlings, BC Math Faculty and Artist, spoke. The title of his talk: "Math Doodling" |
| On Tuesday, November 28, Larry Susanka spoke. The subject was a (mostly independent) extension of several other recent talks on the subject of "Lie Groups and Algebras." The slides may be found here. (Last modified on 11/28/23 at 18:13) | On Tuesday, January 30, Trevor Gamble spoke on a variety of topics. The title of his talk was "A few words on Cantor/infinity, and Contemporary Space Missions." | On Tuesday, February 6, Larry Susanka spoke. The topic: "Probability and Markov Chains." Click here for the slides/handout. (Last modified on 02/7/24 at 17:44) |
| On Tuesday, February 13, Steve Ziskind spoke. The topic: "The Four Color Problem." This was the first of two talks, to be continued next week. Some slides can be found at this link here. A Scientific American article (October 1977) can be found at this link here. | On Tuesday, February 20, Steve Ziskind gave the second of two talks on "The Four Color Problem." | On Tuesday, March 5, Elijah Burns spoke. The title of his talk was "A General Introduction to Quantum Computing." The slides for this talk are provided here. (Last modified on 03/12/24 at 12:32.) |
| On Tuesday, March 12, Larry Curnutt spoke. This was the first of three on this topic, to be continued at the start of next quarter. The title of his talk was "Complex Analysis: The Way It Ought To Be." | On Tuesday, April 9, Larry Curnutt gave the second of three talks on complex variable theory. | On Tuesday, April 16, Larry Curnutt gave the third and (possibly) final talk on complex variable theory. "Complex Analysis: The Way It Ought To Be." This time Larry discussed Green's Theorem, Cauchy's Theorem and the Cauchy Integral Formula. The slides for this talk are provided here. (Last modified on 04/16/24 at 16:40.) |
| On Tuesday, April 23, Liam Anderson spoke. His Title: "Advanced Integration Techniques Not Normally Taught in Calculus." Here are his slides. (Last modified on 05/24/24 at 17:42.) | On Tuesday, April 30, Karina Belokapov spoke. Title: "Every Way We Have Failed to Emulate Our Brains." She describes her talk as "...not quite neuromorphic computing, though I might touch on it. More like comp neuro/ML, Hopfield networks, GNNs, cellular automata, transformers." Here are her slides. (Last modified on 05/5/24 at 05:35.) | On Tuesday, May 7, Luke Rawlings spoke. Title: "How Many Angels Will Fit on the Head of A Pin?" Angels and pins were considered in depth. Slides are posted here. |
| On Tuesday, May 14, Victor Polinger spoke. This was the first of (at least) two talks on Broken Symmetries and the Jahn-Teller Effect. Victor will continue next week. | On Tuesday, May 21, Victor Polinger concluded his presentation of Broken Symmetries and the Jahn-Teller Effect. | On Tuesday, May 28, Trevor Gamble spoke. Title: The physics behind the Aurora Borealis (and a few cool pictures). |
| On Tuesday, June 4, AJ (Alex Kapur) spoke. Title: FrankenFood. | On Tuesday, June 11, Elijah Burns spoke on Linear Optical Quantum Computing, AI & The End Of The World. Here are his slides. (Last modified on 06/12/24 at 13:01.) | |
| 2022-2023 Academic Year | ||
| The first talk of the new post-pandemic series was presented by Larry Susanka on January 24, 2023 and featured an historical review of past talks and proceeded to a discussion of essential topics from linear algebra and will eventually proceed to groups and algebras, important topics to Physicists. This is the first of several related talks (not on consecutive weeks!) and the presentation is from the mathematician's perspective. Physicists in the audience will have to step up to tell us what it means for quantum mechanics or relativistic mechanics. Notes for these talks may be found at algebras1Handout. (Last modified on 04/11/23 at 13:14.) |
On Tuesday, January 31, 2023 Larry Susanka continued a condensed review of the parts of Linear Algebra needed to explore symmetry and the algebras of Mathematical Physics. | On Tuesday, February 14, 2023 Larry Susanka continued. |
| On Tuesday February 21, 2023 Luke Rawlings spoke. The Topic: "Groups of Symmetries of the Plane Which Leave My Art Invariant." In this talk he defined groups and examined a few of his artworks. | On Tuesday February 28, 2023 Luke Rawlings continued with "Groups of Symmetries of the Plane Which Leave My Art Invariant." | On Tuesday March 14, 2023 Steve Ziskind spoke. He explained how some basic ideas from Calculus (Math 151) can be combined with facts from physics and chemistry to determine the age of rocks. The talk will be aimed at students, not faculty. All background knowledge will be provided. Slides: RockDate.pdf. (Last modified on 03/15/23 at 09:18.) |
| On Tuesday March 21, 2023 Steve Ziskind continued to speak on the physics and chemistry used to determine the age of rocks. | On Tuesday April 11, 2023 Larry Susanka talked about groups as part of a (non-consecutive) series of talks on the algebras of mathematical physics. | On Tuesday April 18, 2023 Robert Hobbs spoke on a novel variation of the demonstration showing eddy currents produced by a magnet falling inside a vertical conducting tube. The innovation was in using multiple layers of thin walled brass tube which allows for controlled variation of the eddy curent path resistance. The terminal velocity dependence on this path resistance was measured and compared to theory. This talk was recently presented at a meeting of the Pacific Northwest Association for College Physics and a paper related to this talk will be published soon in the Physics Teacher. |
| On Tuesday April 25, 2023 Larry Susanka talked more about group theory. | On Tuesday May 2, 2023 Larry Susanka talked more about group theory. | On Tuesday May 9, 2023 Larry Susanka discussed group homomorphisms and normal subgroups. |
| On Tuesday, May 16, Tim Player discussed recent developments in robotic grasping technology. He explained methods that are particularly suited to underwater environments. | On Tuesday, 5/23, Steve Ziskind gave the first of a pair of lectures explaining the RSA Encryption Algorithm. The first talk provided the number theory background on which the algorithm is based. | On Tuesday, 5/30, Steve Ziskind gave the second of a pair of lectures explaining the RSA Encryption Algorithm. Slides for this talk. Evgeny Milanov's RSA notes. Steve's Euclidean Algorithm notes. Steve's Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic notes. |
| On Tuesday, June 6, Larry Susanka spoke about homomorphisms, concluding the second series of talks aiming toward a discussion of the algebras of mathematical physics. Here are the collected notes for this and other recent group theory talks. (Last modified on 06/7/23 at 18:55) | On Tuesday, June 13, Trevor Gamble spoke about an interesting optics experiment involving quantum entanglement that he is reviving (with assistance from Kevin Wheelock) here at BC. |
Descriptions of a few Prehistoric Talks, before 1990.
(Only rumors and hints about this mysterious period remain, before the birth date of many of our current faculty. If you have additional information or corrections please contact the Colloquium organizer.)
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