THE NEWSLETTER OF THE MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA Section Awards for Distinguished Teaching Volume 17, Number 4 Henry L. Alder It is a great pleasure to present the 1997 recipi­ for nominating and selecting the award-win­ ents of the Awards for Distinguished Teach­ ning teachers. ing. The awards were conferred at the spring In this Issue The committee met on January 8 in San Diego. meetings of the sections. A representative from each section was invited 3 USAMO Winners The Committee on the Deborah and Franklin to this meeting to review in depth whether the Tepper Haimo Awards for Distinguished Col­ distinguished teaching awards, after having 4 1997 Section lege or University Teaching of Mathematics been in effect for five years, are accomplishing recently nominated at most three of these dis­ the purposes for which they were established. Teaching tinguished teachers for the national Deborah There was a consensus that they indeed have Awardees and Franklin Tepper HaimoAwards. The Board contributed to recognizing, rewarding, and of Governors acted on these nominations at its making wider use of the talents of outstanding 5 Participation of meeting on August 1, 1997 in Atlanta. college teachers of mathematics. There were several excellent suggestions intended to en­ The committee has been greatly impressed with Women in the courage more people to submit nominations. the outstanding quality of this year's awardees MAA They will be communicated to all sections this and the wide variety of teaching strategies suc­ fall. cessfully employed by these outstanding teach­ 8 Fromthe ers. Such excellence has made ita great pleasure The national committee urges all members of Executive to read their files, but has also made the task of the Association to think of worthy candidates Director's Desk nominating the national recipients ofthe awards for these awards· and nominate them to the most difficult. appropriate section committee, including those residing in a section different from that of your 9 President's Report Those chosen for the national awards will make nominee. Even if your candidate should not be presentations on their successes as teachers at selected as a recipient ofthe award, remember the annual meeting in January 1998 in Balti­ 11 New Members of that a nomination by itself is a distinct honor the Board of more. These sessions have become one of the and also that there is a simple procedure allow­ highlights of the annual meeting. Because of ing a candidate to be nominated again if not Governors the favorable audience reaction, these presen­ selected the first time. The larger the pool of tations are reprinted at least in summary form outstanding nominations, the easier it will be in FOCUS, and will appear on 21 Register early for MAA Online. to maintain the high standard for these awards the 1998 Joint The fact that twenty-five of the twenty-nine which have been so successfully established Mathematics sections selected awardees speaks well for the by the first six sets of awardees. Meetings support by the sections ofthe national effort to identify, reward, and honor the outstanding col­ Henry Alder is a professor in the Department lege teachers of mathematics in the U.S. and of Mathematics at UC Davis and chair of the Canada. The national committee commends Committee on the Deborah and Franklin Tepper the sections' efforts in establishing procedures Haimo Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching ofMathematics. His e-mail The Mathematical Association of America Postage paid at address is [email protected]. Washington, DC and 1529 Eighteenth Street, NW additional mailing offices Washington, DC 20036-1385 See page 4 for the awardees' photo spread FOCUS August 1997 FOCUS Editorial FOCUS is published by the Mathematical Association of America six times a year: February, April, June, August, October, Making the Invisible Visible and December. Mathematics is irrelevant to most people's invisible visible. This is a new slogan. Let Editor: Keith J. Devlin, Saint Mary's lives. That, at least, is what many people me give some examples of what I mean. College of California; devlin@stmarys­ think, and what you occasionally read in ca.edu newspaper columns. When the popular Without mathematics, there is no way you Associate Editor: Donald J. Albers, MAA press clamors for better math skills among can understand what keeps a jumbo jet in Associate Executive Director and Director schoolchildren, what they mean is basic the air. As we all know, large metal objects of Publications and Electronic Services; numeracy, not mathematical thinking. don't stay above the ground without some­ [email protected] thing to support them. But when you look It wasn't always so. Thirty years ago, ev­ Editor-Elect: Harry Waldman, MAA; at ajet aircraft flying overhead, you can't eryone accepted that mathematics was [email protected] see anything holding it up. It takes math­ terribly important-important for science, ematics to "see" what keeps an airplane Production Editor: Amy Fabbri, MAA; important for technology, important for aloft. In this case, what lets you "see" the [email protected] defense, important for the space race, and invisible is an equation discovered by the Copy Editor: Nancy Wilson, Saint Mary's important for economic growth. mathematician Daniel Bernoulli early in College of California; nwilson@stmarys­ the eighteenth century. ca.edu Today's perception that mathematics is largely irrelevant comes at the worst pos­ While I'm on the subject of flying, what is Advertising Coordinator: Joseph sible moment. As mathematicians, we Watson, MAA; [email protected] it that causes objects other than aircraft to know, even if most other people don't, that fall to the ground when we release them? Letters to the editor should be addressed to mathematics is more important in today's "Gravity," you answer. But that's just giv­ Keith Devlin, Saint Mary's College of society than at any other time in history. ing it a name. It doesn't help us to under­ California, P.O. Box 3517, Moraga, CA As members of the mathematics profes­ 94575; [email protected]. stand it. It's still invisible. We might as sion, therefore, it is our responsibility­ well call it magic. To understand it, you Subscription and membership questions and ours alone-to ensure that society have to "see" it. That's exactly what New­ should be directed to the MAA Customer doesn't blow it. We must ensure that math­ ton did with his equations of motion and Service Center, 1-800-331-1622; e-mail: ematics continues to receive support and mechanics in the seventeenth century. [email protected]; (301) 617-7800 (outside that enough people continue to pursue it. U.S. and Canada). Newton's mathematics enabled us to "see" A major part of the problem is that hardly the invisible forces that keep the earth The FOCUS subscription price to individual rotating around the sun and cause an apple members of the Association is $6.00, anyone knows what mathematics really included in the annual dues. (Annual dues is. If you pick someone at random on the to fall from the tree onto the ground. for regular members, exclusive of annual street and ask them to describe mathemat­ Both Bernoulli's equation and Newton's subscription prices for MAA journals, are ics in a single sentence, the answer you equations use calculus. Calculus works by $68.00. Student and unemployed members are likely to get is something along the making visible the infinitesimally small. receive a 66 percent discount; emeritus lines, "Mathematics is using numbers." members receive a 50 percent discount; new That's another example of making the in­ members receive a 40 percent discount for To counter this popular misconception, I visible visible. the first two membership years.) suggest we come up with and propagate U sing mathematics, we have already been Copyright © 1997 by the Mathematical one or two simple and easily remembered able to see into the distant past, making Association of America (Incorporated). slogans-sound bites if you like-that visible the otherwise invisible moments Educational institutions may reproduce capture in a single, easily remembered when the universe was first created in what articles for their own use, but not for sale, phrase, the very essence of mathematics. provided that the following citation is used: we call the Big Bang. "Reprinted with permission of FOCUS, the Here is one example: Mathematics is the Coming back to earth at the present time, newsletter of the Mathematical Association science ofpatterns. This slogan is not mine. how do you "see" what makes pictures of America (Incorporated)." I first saw it in print as the title of an article and sound of a football game miraculously Periodicals postage paid at Washington, DC in Science magazine, written by Lynn appear on a television screen on the other and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Steen in the late 1980s, but Steen says it side of the country? One answer is that the Send address changes to the MAA, P.O. Box did not originate with him either. But pictures and sound are transmitted by ra­ 90973, Washington, DC 20090-0973 whoever is the parent or creator of this dio waves-a special case of what we call ISSN: 0731-2040 particular slogan, I think it's a good one. electromagnetic radiation. But as with Printed in the United States of America. It captures both the nature and the scope gravity, that .... O· 1 :I fl.- - .. of mathematics. Here is another: Mathematics makes the ~!!i=~!!5!::!:r]e 2 August 1997 FOCUS mathematics. Maxwell's equations, dis­ covered in the last century, make visible USAMO Winners, IMO Team Announced to us the otherwise invisible radio waves.