Talk Math 2 Me Seminar
Timeframe: Undergrad
Scope: Personal Interest
Problem: To participate in a mathematics seminar which allows students to present on mathematical topics of their own interest.
What is Talk Math 2 Me?
Talk Math 2 Me is a weekly mathematics seminar at Lake Superior State University put on by the School of Computer Science and Mathematics. Student lecturers speak on anything they want that is related to mathematics, giving an opportunity to learn mathematical communication, practice public speaking, or just provide an avenue to monolog on a favorite mathematical topic.
Why do I participate?
A lot of reasons.
When I first started it was a way to practice my almost nonexistent public speaking skills. I really didn’t want to, but I needed to, and after a while I made a commitment to myself to give two lectures every semester, which I have and will continue to adhere to.
But it’s not always a commitment. Sometimes I just really just have a topic I’m passionate about sharing to the world.
Fall 2024. I give examples of kinematic, dynamic, and state-space control models, and the various kinds of mobile robots to which each is or is not applicable.
Spring 2024. When the Professor creates a machine that can switch two people’s minds- but can’t switch them back- it takes a new mathematical theorem to get everything straightened out.
Spring 2024. In which I broke down different musical instrument’s notes and analyzed their differences with spectrum plots, then showed how to build audio signals with the Fourier Series, with a brief discussion of how that connects to the .mp3 file format.
Fall 2023. In which I talked about note values and time signatures.
Fall 2023. That one time I thought I had an interesting idea for a talk that I already knew plenty about. I didn’t, and the result was a many-month-long deep dive into music theory, acoustics, and signals that led to (so far) three talks on music, signing up for multiple electrical engineering classes for electives, a greater competence in my job as a theatrical audio tech, an enormous new appreciation for the instruments I play, an really a whole new interest in learning. This talk delved into music theory and acoustics from Pythagoras on, especially talking about how that mathematician influenced the entire western system of tuning instruments for thousands of years, and mathematically contrasting just and perfect tuning.
Spring 2023. My nerve-wracking first talk, drawn largely from my recent Intro to Robotics notes: how to determine the position of a manipulator end effector in 2D with geometry.