MASS - Summer REU 2004

In Summer 2004 the Mathematics Department of the Pennsylvania State University hosted a Research Experiences for Undergraduates site. Eleven participants were selected from qualified applicants.

The program ran for 7 weeks from June 28 to August 13, 2004. It combined learning with research and included:

one six-week course, Mathematical Billiards
Instructor: Sergei Tabachnikov, Professor of Mathematics, Director of MASS Program
(complete course notes in PDF, about 600K; Billiards by S. Tabachnikov in PDF, about 700K)
Weekly seminar run by the program coordinator
Research projects
- Chris Culter (Submitted for publication),
  Dual billiards for polygons always have periodic orbits
- Van Cyr and Mit'ka Vaintrob,
  Bicycle curves part 1 (by Van Cyr)
  Bicycle curves part 2 (by Mitka Vaintrob)
- Chris Biermann and Stas Sheynkop,
  The Benford's Law and random iterations of 2x² and 3x² (by Chris Biermann)
  The Benford's Law and areas of countries (by Stas Sheynkop)
- Rob King, Haijian Lin, Sarah Mall, and Greg McNulty
  Lower bounds on mean curvature of closed curves contained in convex boundaries
- Sarah Mall,
  Lower bounds on mean curvature of closed curves contained in L shape
- James Krysiak and Zachary McCoy,
  Alexandrov's conjecture: On the intrinsic diameter and surface area of Convex surfaces
- Casey Bush and Toan Phan,
  Bending fields, rigidity and bellows conjecture