Moody Lecture - "When Mathematics Meets YouTube"

Harvey Mudd College is always trying to introduce opportunities to hear about the wonders of science and mathematics from various individuals in different fields of study.  The Mathematics Department hosts lectures as part of something called the "Moody Lecture Series" once a semester.  Tonight, a man named Jonathan Rogness, from the University of Minnesota was talking about a video he co-created about Mobius Transformations which became a reasonably popular video on YouTube (considering that it is discussing complex mathematics) with over 1.7 million views.

You can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX3VmDgiFnY


The lecture itself was very interesting.  Rogness spent the end of the lecture discussing the mathematics of Modius Transformations, and some of the complexities of creating the video itself.  Rogness and his colleague chose to create the video for a competition searching for visualizations of science and mathematics in a way that can be appealing to the general public.  He also chose to post the video on YouTube, primarily as a way to share the link with friends and colleagues.

At some point, the video received the attention of not just the mathematically inclined, but the general population.  The beginning of Rogness' presentation discussed the response, and the shift of attention achieved by the video.  He mentions how the very first comments are by those who understand mathematics, and were sharing their appreciation for the video.  But as it became more popular, Rogness highlights the change in the comments - from mathematical appreciation to the general wonder of those who cannot understand, but still appreciated the outcome.

Rogness had a great presentation and was a very interesting speaker.  I think that one of the best parts about his presentation, was the fact that he seemed to share the general wonder for the mathematics itself - it was something that he was deeply interested in, and this could show in his presentation of the topic.

It was very interesting, and I am glad that I was able to attend the lecture.

Thanksgiving Dinner

In order to celebrate the holiday season here at Harvey Mudd College, the dinning hall held a massive Thanksgiving dinner.  They served turkey and roast beef, and all sorts of different trimmings (the stuffing was delicious)!  It seemed to be a huge event, and the lines for food ended up getting very long.  Then, there was a huge table of bread and cheese, and another separate table full of Thanksgiving desserts like apple pie and sweet potato pie.

All of the tables were set with paper place-mats and colored napkins to help perpetuate the holiday feeling. And in order to help with the communal, festive feeling, many of the main tables in the dinning room were rearranged to from longer areas to accommodate a larger more social setting.

But it was also very sweet. Overall, it felt very friendly and comfortable; something only a small school could do, and it was something that I know many of the other students appreciated.  The food was delicious and the setting festive.  It was a great experience!

Southern California A Cappella Music Festival (Scamfest)

The Claremont Colleges have a number of different A Cappella groups ranging from the Claremont Shades (the group hosting the festival) to the Kosher Chords.  Not only did the various Claremont groups perform tonight, but there were some groups from other schools in the area (USC and UCLA), including a group which made an appearance in the new movie about Facebook, "The Social Network."

One of the perks of being a Freshman is that the upperclassmen are always providing free opportunities to go to such events, so I was able to get a free ticket to the show.  It was located in a very large and impressive auditorium on Pomona, so there were a lot of people in attendence.

Overall, it was a lot of fun!  Many of the groups were absolutely wonderful, and everyone was full of energy and excitement.  It is no surprise that there were a large range of songs (the 12 groups each did 2 to 3 songs), and the performers and audience alike were energized and excited throughout the whole festival.

It was the 15th annual Scamfest festival, and it was absolutely great.  It is a wonderful thing to have on campus, and I am really glad that I was able to go, and will certainly consider going again next year.

Mastermind!

I remember playing mastermind all the time when I was a little kid, so it was fun to have it appear again in college.  And where else would it appear besides CS?  This week, we had the choice between a couple games (Mastermind and Nim) and the creation of phylogenetic trees.  I ended up creating both games, but Mastermind was generally the more interesting because of the ability to customize the graphic.

The program itself began with some simple output into the python shell (the board is simply printed onto the screen as shown):

The output for a game of Mastermind.

While this is not all that exciting, and really was not even that hard to program, the optional extra credit is where the game actually got interesting.

But first, some logistics.  Both versions of the game (text and graphic) allow for the selection of the number of holes, the number of rows, and the number of colors.  This prompting can be seen at the top of the image above.  Of course, the program tests to make sure that this input is valid (meaning it is greater than zero) before allowing the user to continue.  The program itself generates a random code which the user must then guess in the number of rounds (rows) specified.  When the guess is completed (and checked for validity), the program calculates and prints the score before the user's next turn.  It is a simple game of mastermind, and extremely easy to implement.

The fun part comes in the graphic, which evenly spaces the rows and holes so that it fits within the frame of the screen.  I was also able to include colors (which is much more bright and exciting) instead of simply just numbers.  However, each number is still tied to a color in the graphic game in order to allow for easy of user input.

The games can range from fairly simple (only three possible colors):

I could have won sooner if I was paying attention.

Notice, the code is displayed upon victory and a winning message is printed at the top.

But the games can get much more complex with the addition of more holes and more colors:

I had some pretty good luck on this one.

I just could not guess that last color.

In this picture, unfortunately, I lost.  Notice the message at the top: I included an option to view the code if it is not guessed at some point during the game, but in this case, the code is not visible.

All of these graphic displays were controlled by text input similar to the first picture, the only difference being that the board is displayed graphically instead of as text in the python shell.

There was another extra credit option: to implement a code by which the computer would guess a code chosen by the user.  But I ran out of time this week, and was unable to actually get to this part of the problem.  As usual, it was all a lot of fun, with a generally pleasing result (though it had a number of annoying bugs along the way).

Too much procrastination happened this weekend, so I still have quiet a bit to do.  No more fun and games: back to work.