What’s a “vulgar fraction”? Find out!
“The Farey Tree”
Presented by James Carr, Faculty in Mathematics
October 9th - from noon until 12:50
Room C1095
New Ideas and DiscussionNormandale Colloquium Series 2009 - 2010
James Carr's Biographical Statement:
I was born in southern Minnesota in the town of Blue Earth. I did undergraduate work at St. John’s University Collegeville, the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Metropolitan University in Minneapolis, Brown Institute (back in its Lake Street days), and St. Cloud State University finally getting a BA in Mathematics with a minor in Earth Science from St. Cloud State. I then worked for thirteen years for NCR Network Products Division in Roseville, Minnesota in communications software programming, technical support for marketing, and several management positions. I twice started in the graduate program in mathematics at the University of Minnesota without finishing anything and later did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) getting an MA in Mathematics. I then continued at UWM in the doctoral program progressing to my current” all but dissertation” status. After that I taught at the Milwaukee School of Engineering for eight years and then returned to Minnesota to teach at Normandale Community College for the last two years. My research interests include the study of low-dimensional dynamics, for which I have some qualifications and little excitement, and questions involving prime number distribution, for which I am woefully under-qualified but have a grand passion. I have always loved the primes, even back when I was a kid in Blue Earth. Trying to understand prime numbers brought me into contact with the Farey mathematics which is the subject of my talk today.
