This week our speaker is Daniel Briggs. He will talk about “Self-Similarity: Geometric Series, Games with Checkers, and the Golden Ratio.” Come listen and enjoy free pizza and soda this Wednesday at 5:30 in LGRT 1634.
Abstract:
A lot of great math has resulted from investigating interesting ways to compare a thing to itself. For example, crystals and fractals can be formulated mathematically and studied in terms of their self-similarity, and they have far-reaching impact on science. Our first focus will be to view infinite geometric series in terms of their relationship to themselves, and use them to investigate some self-similar games with checkers. The golden ratio shows up, which provides a good opportunity to talk about pentagons and Fibonacci numbers. At the end, there will be a brief discussion of how the idea of self-similarity plays a role in modern mathematics.