Deanna Haunsperger - Carlton College - "Bright Lights on the Horizon"
1. The hardest part of this lecture was understanding exactly what the theme/purpose/topic of her lecture was. Every few minutes she started a new snippet about some interesting mathematics that someone is doing. But I did not know how each related to each other and what the point of talking about each of these people was other than it was really fascinating. I think she was just mentioning interesting articles that have been published in the journal she is in charge of, but it was still hard to follow and confusing to switch between all these different stories every two minutes.
2. The most interesting part of this lecture was EVERYTHING! She was so interesting to talk to and I actually understood what she was saying! The parts of the lecture I enjoyed the most were the parts where she would talk about mathematicians who did work that dealt with the arts. For example, mathematician Stephen D. Abbott studies "Turning Theorems into Plays." This is so cool because I am in love with plays and I love plays with math. She mentioned that the main playwright Abbott studies is Tom Stoppard. I actually saw one of his plays in London last summer, but I am ashamed to say that I did not know that Stoppard wrote other plays about math. She mentioned the play "Arcadia." I am now inspired to go read it! I also loved her talking about the topic "The Eccentricies of Actors." This deals with the Bacon Number and if Kevin Bacon is the center of the unverise and how many connections it takes for an actor to be connected to Kevin Bacon. Then she related it to Erdos numbers in mathematics. I absolutely loved this lecture. I learned things, and I was inspired by things she said, and it was just so interesting!!
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