For more information about this meeting, contact Svetlana Katok, Becky Halpenny, Flossie Dunlop.
| Title: | A short history of length |
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| Seminar: | PMASS Colloquium |
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| Speaker: | Joel C. Langer, Case Western Reserve University |
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| Abstract: |
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| A handy old device called a waywiser - basically a wheel and axle mounted
on a handle - may be used to measure the length of a path, straight or curved. If the wheel
is one meter in circumference, the waywiser measures the length of the path in meters by
counting revolutions of the wheel as it is walked from beginning to end of the path. It works
well enough in practice - but does it also work in theory?
In fact, the waywiser and the concept of arc length may be used to illustrate both successes
of ancient geometers and some of the struggles faced by subsequent mathematicians and
philosophers in coming to terms with innity, innite processes and associated computations.
The story of arc length alternates between geometry and the theory of numbers, between
the continuous and the discrete, over two thousand years. |
Room Reservation Information
| Room Number: | MB113 |
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| Date: | 04 / 18 / 2013 |
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| Time: | 02:30pm - 03:20pm |
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