November 22, 2024

EagleEye

A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff

Keith Mellinger Publishes in College Mathematics Journal

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Keith Mellinger

Keith Mellinger, associate professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics, together with a colleague from Kean University in N.J., recently published “The Spider and the Fly” in the College Mathematics Journal, a publication of the Mathematical Association of America.

The Spider and the Fly puzzle, originally attributed to the great puzzler Henry Ernest Dudeney, and now over 100 years old, asks for the shortest path between two points on a particular square prism. The authors explore a generalization, find that the original solution only holds in certain cases, and suggest how this discovery might be used in the classroom.

Keith Mellinger Published in “Discrete Mathematics”

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Keith Mellinger, associate professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics, had his article “Spreads, arcs, and multiple wavelength codes” published in the journal Discrete Mathematics.  In addition, he presented the talk “Blocking Semiovals and Cryptology” as an invited speaker at the Combinatorics, Algebra and Geometry Seminar at George Mason University in November.

Mathematics Students Present at Regional Meeting

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Three UMW students presented results of their research projects at the fall regional meeting of the Mathematical Association of America held at Christopher Newport University in November.  Catherine O’Doherty presented “Explanation of the Matrix Exponential,” a work based on her project under the direction of Dr. Julius Esunge.  Ryan Vaughn’s presentation, titled “On the Contractibility of Finite coH-Spaces” extends his work with Dr. Randall Helmstutler which began during the Summer Science Institute of 2011.  Finally, Kelly Scott presented “Anti-Blocking Sets” based on her honors project currently in progress under the direction of Dr. Keith Mellinger.

Keith Mellinger

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Keith E. Mellinger, associate professor and chair of the department of mathematics, and former UMW student Jake Farinholt coauthored the article “Minimal generators for BCH codes” published in spring 2011 issue of The Pi Mu Epsilon Journal, an official publication of the national honorary mathematics society.

Keith Mellinger

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Keith E. Mellinger, associate professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics, had the article “Spreads, Arcs, and Multiple Wavelength Codes” published in the journal Discrete Mathematics. In addition, his article “On the Number of K-Gons in Finite Projective Planes” was published in the Italian journal Note di Mathematica.

Keith Mellinger

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Keith Mellinger, associate professor and chair of mathematics, and a colleague from Virginia Tech, were presented the Carl B. Allendoerfer Award at the annual meeting of the Mathematical Association of America in Pittsburgh in August. The award recognizes outstanding expository articles in mathematics. Mellinger was honored for the article, “Kirkman’s  Schoolgirls Wearing Hats and Walking Through Fields of Numbers,” that appeared in the February 2009 edition of Mathematics Magazine. Read about the award and see the article at http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/22/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=1355.

In addition, Mellinger published two papers, “Classes of Permutation Arrays in Finite Projective Spaces” in the International Journal of Information and Coding Theory, and “On the Number of k-gons in Finite Projective Planes” in Note di Matematica. In addition, Dr. Mellinger gave several talks, “On Blocking Semiovals Containing Conics” at the Discrete Mathematics Seminar at the University of Delaware; “Kirkman’s Schoolgirls Wearing Hats and Walking through Fields of Numbers” at a departmental colloquium at California State University, Fresno; “Coding, Cryptography and Conics: Using What They Know to Introduce Research” at a faculty seminar at CSU Fresno; and “Applying the Stuff We Like: Blocking Semiovals and Cryptology” at a discrete mathematics seminar at Virginia Commonwealth University.