Mathematical Genealogy

You can view a copy of my mathematical family tree here. It shows me, my advisor, my advisor's advisor, and so on, as far back as data is available from the Mathematics Genealogy Project. You might recognize a few names in the tree (including James Clerk Maxwell, father of the unified theory of electromagnetism). I downloaded the data for the tree using David Alber's Geneagrapher, and then produced the graph using the program GraphViz.

Math Quotes

Some quotations that I like to share with my students:

  • "Reductio ad absurdum, which Euclid loved so much, is one of a mathematician's finest weapons. It is a far finer gambit than any chess play: a chess player may offer the sacrifice of a pawn or even a piece, but a mathematician offers the game." -- G.H. Hardy
  • "Sense perception is sense deception." -- Descartes

Math Links

If you are thinking of majoring in mathematics, or are just interested in mathematics generally, you might like:

Here are some other math-related links:

Pencil sculpture

This pencil sculpture is constructed from 72 pencils (which, conveniently, is how many come in a standard box) and a lot of super glue. My graduate school roommate Nicholas Hamblet figured out how to build the sculpture after studying pictures of George W. Hart's original pencil sculpture. Nick also documented on his blog his experiences building the sculpture. My copy of the sculpture is currently on display in my office.

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