The Wesleyan Connection

In The Calculus of Friendship (Princeton University Press), Cornell University professor Steven Strogatz chronicles the moving story of the friendship he developed with his former high school math teacher, Don Joffray ’50, over 30 years through the exchange of letters between them. For a long time, their friendship revolved almost entirely on a shared love of calculus.

Joffray goes from the prime of his career to retirement, competes in whitewater kayaking at the international level, and loses a son. Strogatz matures from high school math whiz to Ivy League professor, has a failed marriage, and experiences the sudden death of a parent. Eventually they get to know each other better beyond the world of mathematics.

In the prologue, Strogatz writes: “Like calculus itself, this book is an exploration of change. It’s about the transformation that takes place in a student’s heart, as he and his teacher reverse roles, as they age, as they are buffeted by life itself.” Their shared love of calculus becomes “a constant while all around them is in flux.”

A video about the book is on YouTube.

Anna Haensch, graduate student, mathematics and computer science, is on the steering committee of Fourth Annual Spuyten Duyvil Undergraduate Mathematics Conference, which is being held at SUNY-New Paltz April 25. She also will be making a presentation titled “The Pell Equation” which will discuss the Pell equation (x2-ny2=1) which was studied by the ancient Greeks and is one of the oldest Diophantine equations, and arguably the most important.

Graduate student Weiwei Pan spoke on "Categorified Bundles and Classifying Spaces" at the 2008 Eastern Sectional Meeting of the American Mathematical Society held Oct. 11-12 at Wesleyan. (Photos by Olivia Bartlett)

During a session on algebraic topology, graduate student Weiwei Pan spoke to dozens of mathematical scholars from around the world on “Categorified Bundles and Classifying Spaces.”

Pan was one of 220 speakers who presented math-related talks during the 2008 Eastern Sectional Meeting of the American Mathematical Society held Oct. 11-12 at Wesleyan. More than 300 participants registered.

“One of the best things about being a mathematician is that there are people all over the world who share your interests, and that mathematics (more…)