This semester the seminar will be dedicated to the study of various relations between geometry and algebra, with a special focus on the classical Greek problems of trisecting angles, squaring the circle, doubling the cube, and constructing regular n-gons.

Our textbook is "Conjecture and Proof," written for the Budapest Semesters by Miklós Laczkovich (the Hungarian wizard who 'squared the circle'), published originally by TypoTeX, Hungary, reissued by the MAA (for the MAA review, see www.maa.org/reviews/conjproof.html). We will call it the LBB (the Little Black Book).

LIST OF TALKS, FALL '03

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September 4, 11, 18
   Profs. Carrington and Komlós: Introductory lectures; the Greek problems.

September 25
   Dennis Faynberg: Logic, sets, relations.

October 2
   Vidya Venkateswaran: Fields and constructible numbers.

October 9
   Mark Sikora: Linear algebra.

October 16
   U-alumnus Joe Walsh: The ring of polynomials over a field.

October 23
   The profs: Field extensions.

October 30
   Joe Walsh: The finale of the Greek story.

November 6
   Steve Curran and Aiqiu Lu: Groups and number theory.

November 13
   Dennis Sadakh: Isometries in Rn.

November 20
   Aron Samkoff: Non-Euclidean geometry.

November 25
   Will McGowan and Nakul Raykar: Cardinality.

December 4
   Prof. Roe Goodman: Alice Through Looking Glass after Looking Glass;
                      the Mathematics of Mirrors