Applied Mathematics News

A great time was had by all!

Students, faculty, and staff had a blast at the 3rd Annual Fine School of the Sciences Spring Spectacular. They enjoyed math and science based interactive activities and games, ice cream made with liquid nitrogen, a vacuum cannon, the explosion of a trash can filled with ping pong balls using only liquid nitrogen, a pool filled with a non-Newtonian fluid, and much more! Special thanks to math faculty member, Dr. Ben Wilson, who organized this event, and all the students and faculty who participated in running the events!

Congratulations to Applied Math Major, Jess Rega, the Dell Scholarship recipient for 2018-2019. The Dell Scholarship is endowed by SU board member Mr. Samuel Dell III and the late Mrs. Geraldine Dell and supports the next generation of scientists and mathematicians by providing a scholarship to a science or math major in his/her senior year at SU. Receipt of this prestigious award is intended to enhance the credibility and competitiveness of the recipient in pursuing career goals following graduation. We’re so proud of you, Jess!

Dr. Benjamin Wilson was invited to give a talk at Roanoke College, Salem, Virginia, as a speaker in their Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics Conversation Series. His talk titled “Would Wheel of Fortune be Easier in Dothraki or Klingon?” was based on his research project with Stevenson Applied Math majors Gerald Roman-Gonzalez and Billy Heidel in which they are analyzing the complexity of constructed languages using tools from Information Theory, Dynamical Systems, and Statistics. During the talk, Dr. Wilson put attendees in the role of Claude Shannon in the late 1940’s who studied the complexity of written English using several experiments on native English speakers which exploited their inherent knowledge of the statistics of the language.