INSTRUCTOR : CHRIS GOLÉ

OFFICE : BURTON 316

TELEPHONE: (585) 3875

EMAIL & WWW : cgole@math.smith.edu & www.math.smith.edu/~cgole

OFFICE HOURS : Tuesdays 4-6 and Thursdays 2:30-4, or by appointment

CLASS MEETING : MWF 9-10 and (as needed) Th 8-9

TEXT: Groups and Symmetry by David W. Farmer. Available at the College bookstore.

ABOUT THE CLASS: In this class, you will explore hands on patterns that occur in nature and human design. These include crystals, codes, wallpaper patterns, the Rubik's cube and Escher's drawings. We will study the underlying mathematical structures of these patterns, called groups. Other patterns which are less obviously related to groups occur in flowers and pine cones. We will see how they give rise to the Fibonacci sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8,11,…) and the Golden mean.

PREREQUISITE: None. Students from all disciplines are welcome!

GROUP WORK: You will work in groups both inside and outside of class. You should strive so that each member in your group contributes fairly. If you feel that your group is disfunctional, or that you discovered an allergy to group work, you should come and talk to me.

WORKBOOKS: The course is designed so that you will be doing tasks from the text (or from my web page) on a near-daily basis. You will continuously write up the result of this work in a special workbook. During and outside class, you will meet with your group to discuss the current material. Together, you will need to come to agreement on common solutions to the tasks that have been assigned. You are then responsible to put the group's solution into your own word and write it up in your workbook.

Each Wednesday, I will collect (usually at random) one workbook from each group. Each of you will have two sets of grades for your workbooks: one from those times when I collected your notebook, another for the times when I collected notebooks from anyone in your group (including yourself). Thus you will have both an individual workbook average and a group workbook average.

PROJECTS: You will each due two projects which include a short class presentation. One of your two projects may be done jointly with a classmate. I will provide you with the guidelines and suggestions for your projects in the near future. To break the project into smaller pieces, there will be a few due dates for each project, as shown below. These projects will be peer reviewed.

ATTENDANCE: Attendance to all the classes is very important. I would appreciate your writing me an email message or calling me if you cannot make it to a class.