Holy Cross Mathematics and Computer Science
MONT 105Q
Mathematical Journeys: From Unknown to Known
Note: All information on this page is still under development and subject to change.
Syllabus, day-by-day schedule, and CHQ cluster events
-
Course syllabus (.pdf)
- Detailed course
schedule
- Core Human Questions Cluster Common Events
- Monday, 2/1 -- Talk on Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Prof. Ken Prestwich,
7:00pm, Hanselman social room
- Thursday, 2/18 -- Showing of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 7:00pm, Seelos Theater
- Wednesday, 2/24 -- Montserrat Debate Night, 6:00pm, Hogan Campus Center
- Monday, 3/14 -- Showing of Incendies, 7:00pm, Seelos Theater
- Saturday, 4/2 -- Field trip to Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, 9:15am - 4:30pm -- waiver form for the trip
- Monday, 4/11 -- Showing of The Music Box, 7:00pm, Seelos Theater
- Wednesday, 4/20 -- Hamlet, 8:00pm, Fenwick Theater
- Wednesday, 5/4 -- End-of-year banquet, 6:00pm, Suites A and B/C, Hogan Campus Center
Course materials
- Abridged and annotated edition of The Voyage of the
Beagle by Charles Darwin (first CHQ common reading)
- A print showing the real H.M.S. Beagle
- Map of Darwin's voyage
- Illustration of beaks of various species of
finches that Darwin observed in the Galapagos islands
- Reading/Study questions for discussion of
Logicomix and background from The Mathematical Experience, classes 2/3,5,7,10.
- Raphael's painting The School of Athens
(in the Stanza della Segnatura in the papal palace, Vatican City, Rome)
- The page from Russell and Whitehead, Principia Mathematica where
the statement 1 + 1 = 2 is derived
- "The Dawning of the Age of Stochasticity", by David
Mumford
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
- Outpatient visits and employees US Veterans Adminstration, 2014.
- Online weather forecasters -- accuracy of forecasts.
- Projected college student GPA's as function of financial aid provided
by parents (from L. Hamilton, "More is More or More is Less? Parental Financial Investments
During College," American Sociological Review)
- "Crash course" on Excel, class March 16 -- we'll use the first of
these example spreadsheets that day:
first example spreadsheet
- Probability histograms of sample means, class March 18
- Practice on using the standard normal table, class March 21
- Table of standard normal curve areas (from Mathematical Statistics,
by Wackerly, Mendenhall, and Scheaffer, but they also copied it from an earlier statistics
textbook(!))
- Lecture Notes on statistical inference and hypothesis testing
- Cognitive control in media multitaskers, class April 6.
- Solutions for the midterm exam.
- t-table (information for setting up rejection regions for tests
on means with small sample size)
- Correlation spreadsheet, class April 13.
- Geometric meaning of the correlation coefficient, class April 13
- A serious correlation example, class April 13
- A silly correlation example, class April 13
- "Correlation is not causation", class April 13
- Regression example spreadsheet, class April 15
- Advice on reading Shakespeare's Hamlet and some
study questions
Assignments
- Problem Set 1 -- individual write-ups
due in class on Friday, February 19.
- Paper Assignment 1 -- due no later than 5:00pm on
Friday, February 26.
- Problem Set 2 -- individual write-ups
due in class on Friday, March 4; selected solutions
- Information on the final projects for this seminar -- general information,
schedule, topic ideas, etc. Get started on this soon!
- Problem Set 3 -- write-ups
due by email, no later than 5:00pm on Monday March 21.
- Problem Set 4 -- ``official'' due date is
Wednesday, March 30, in class. However, if you submit your work on Tuesday, March 29,
I guarantee to have it back to you for feedback before the midterm exam on Friday, April 1.
- Problem Set 5, due in class on Friday, April 8.
- Problem Set 6, due in class on Friday, April 15.
- Paper Assignment 2 -- due no later than 5:00pm on
Friday, April 29.
Information and announcements
- Our CHQ Hamlet week starts Monday, April 18(!) Please read the whole play
before class on that day -- study questions.
- Don't put off working on the final project for this course; recall that you
will need to submit an annotated bibliography of sources by April 15, and that
I will be meeting with all the project groups during the week of April 18 for
progress reports.
- Everyone is eligible to submit a response paper on either "Incendies"
or "The Music Box" for extra credit on the midterm exam (but not both).
I will accept these any time before May 9 (last day of classes).
Other Related Items
- Note: The Greek phrase appearing next to the heading of this page is one traditional rendering of
the reported inscription over the entrance to Plato's Academy in Athens
(founded about 387 BCE).
It means (roughly)
Let no one ignorant of geometry enter. This is a reflection of the foundational
role of geometry in Plato's ideas about knowledge and education.
Downloading Information
The links for assignments and other handouts shown above with the notation
(.pdf file) lead to documents in PDF format. To read and print these, you
will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. This
is available at no cost from Adobe.
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Last modified: April 14, 2016