Mathematicians

IT'S SOMETIMES said that mathematicians live on a hyperbolic plane -- deep-rooted in their work, sheltered from the world and current events, speaking in different tongues -- all rendering them, well, nerds.Dweebs. Squares. Zonkoids.It does take a special sense of humor to understand this joke: "What do you get when you cross a sheep and a goat?" Answer: a sheep-goat sine theta. Mathematicians who work with the cross-product of vectors think that's a scream.Mathematicians are as much maligned as blonds when it comes to stereotypes.

In one way or another, Manil Suri has spent his entire life charting what happens when polar opposites are brought together in unexpected and at times startling juxtapositions. Suri, 53, is an acclaimed novelist, and a career mathematician who teaches at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He spent the first two decades of his life in India and the past three in the United States. Though all his books to date have been set in Mumbai, they are written in English. Suri's debut novel, "The Death of Vishnu," set off a bidding war between 11 publishing houses in 2001.

The exhibit "Beyond Numbers" is intended to take visitors beyond the long division and checkbook balancing that turned off many of them in school."There are whole realms of modern math that depend on different skills," said Exhibits Director D. D. Hilke. "In the exhibit, we expose you to a lot of these different kinds of math, and you get the opportunity to think a little like mathematicians do."With computers doing the "heavy lifting," mathematicians are freed to use their imaginations to tackle larger challenges.

The new system for measuring school progress announced by the Maryland State Department of Education this week is being touted as a great advance over the one it replaces. State officials say the School Progress Index aims to cut in half the percentage of students who fail to score proficient or better on standardized tests by 2017 and that it sets more realistic targets for what schools can achieve. Yet its complexity and the lack of transparency regarding how school performance is calculated are enough to raise questions about whether the new system really represents much of an improvement over the old. Maryland developed the School Progress Index in order to receive a federal waiver from the requirements of the Bush-era federal No Child Left Behind Act. Under that law, schools were judged to be failing if they didn't make "adequate yearly progress" in boosting test scores in reading and math, leading toward 100 percent proficiency in both subjects by 2014.

In addition to warding off doom by eavesdropping on the world, the National Security Agency has shouldered a corollary responsibility over the past 10 years: saving the world of mathematics.The NSA's presence at this week's math conference in Baltimore is part of a stepped-up effort to reinforce the nation's math underpinnings through research grants to mathematicians, yearlong sabbaticals at its Fort Meade headquarters and summer programs for undergraduate math students.The effort costs the secretive spy agency more than $3 million a year, said James R. Schatz, chief of the NSA's mathematics research division.

It looks like a numbers game: 4,000 mathematicians gathering under one roof in downtown Baltimore for four days.But while math mavens work with algorithms, polynomials and topologies, their desire to know speaks the language of poets.How long does it take a bubble to float to Earth?What are the rules for creating a cloud?Why, in the fractured world of human relations, does the symbol for love take the shape of a perfectly symmetrical heart?Of course, the answers to these questions are written in symbols that would have stumped Euclid.

There may be conventions with featured speakers who wear sandals in midwinter, admit their life's work has no practical applications and answer questions by writing out long and complicated equations. But not many conferences include topics so far from reality that even the organizers acknowledge they sound bizarre. About 5,000 mathematicians and math teachers are in Baltimore this week as part of the Joint Mathematics Meetings, held annually to discuss theorems, shapes and formulas that go way beyond balancing a checkbook.

Industry and academia have cut back on hiring. But the secretive National Security Agency needs more than a few good mathematicians and has sacrificed some of its cherished anonymity to recruit them.At a time when the NSA plans to trim its overall work force by about 15 percent, the high-technology spy agency near Fort Meade is aggressively recruiting people with degrees in mathematics.The agency, which refuses to cite numbers, already claims to be the largest employer of mathematicians in the United States.

Mathematicians and scientists from the National Security Agency have begun teaching regularly in Howard County schools this year under an educational partnership.Beginning this school year, about 10 mathematicians and scientists from the NSA's Mathematics Education Partnership Program are each working one hour a week with students in math and science.NSA officials applauded the partnership."The quality of education of the general population is an issue of national security," said NSA math adviser George Alberts.

The Middle River Speedway proposal ran smack into theTowson Wall.Four thousand mathematicians convened in Baltimore to play Lotto.Psst. Buddy. Get out of Confederate dollars and into Indonesian rupiah, which will rise again.They may both think that Terry Nichols faces a worse punishment than Timothy McVeigh.Pub Date: 1/09/98

Twelve years ago, Walters Art Museum curator Will Noel opened a parcel and discovered what he calls "Archimedes' brain in a box. " Thus began a search for buried treasure — in this case, the lost writings of Archimedes of Syracuse, a famed Greek mathematician and inventor who lived in the third century B.C. Noel and his boss, museum director Gary Vikan, found a 174-page book made of cured goatskin that was ugly beyond belief. The sheaves were singed around the edges, the text and pages were defaced by water stains, and mold had eaten away entire sections.

Jeanne Ellen Foster, an accomplished needlework teacher and quilter who helped run a family funeral home, died of respiratory failure Monday at the Forest Hill Health and Rehabilitation Center. The Bel Air resident was 79. Born Jeanne Ellen Armstrong in Lancaster, Pa., she was the daughter of Albert Ledmon Armstrong, who headed the paint decorating section in the can factory that produced McCormick spice tins. She was a 1948 graduate of Manheim Township High School and Hood College, where she earned a degree in mathematics.

John S. McCollum, a mathematician and technical supervisor who worked at Aberdeen Proving Ground, died Saturday of complications from pneumonia at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. He was 86. Mr. McCollum was born in Baltimore and raised on Longwood Street. He was a 1941 graduate of Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington. His studies at Loyola College were interrupted when he enlisted in the Navy in 1943. Trained as a gunnery officer, he served aboard an amphibious landing ship tank in the Pacific.

Charlotte Truesdell, a patron of music and a lover of art and cooking, died July 5 in her home in Baltimore. She was 86. She died of natural causes, said a sister, Audrey Halperin of Atlantis, Fla. Mrs. Truesdell lived in Baltimore for more than four decades. She played host to and fed dozens of classical musicians visiting Baltimore. The former Charlotte Brudno was born in Boston. She attended Cambridge Junior College, and after receiving a degree in mathematics, went to work as a mathematician for a Massachusetts Institute of Technology lab, where the work focused on radiation.

Richard C. Roberts, a founding member of the faculty of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a professor at the university for 25 years, died of cancer Thursday at his home in Columbia. He was 82. Dr. Roberts was one of five division chairmen at UMBC when it opened in 1966. As head of the mathematics and physics departments, he recruited faculty, taught courses and helped set the course for the fledgling university. He was later dean of the mathematics department. "In the formative years of the department, his vision counted a lot," said Manil Suri, a UMBC mathematics professor whom Dr. Roberts hired in 1983.

In true Boy Scout fashion, Joseph Kochenderfer came prepared to the 21st annual Harford's Most Beautiful People event, which honors voluntarism. When the big moment arrived and Kochenderfer was named the county's top volunteer from among 50 nominees, he had his thank-yous written. After accepting the etched crystal plaque, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his notes. "I always told my Scouts, `Be prepared,'" he said to the crowd of about 500 attending the ceremony Thursday at Bel Air Church of the Nazarene.

Industry and academia have cut back on hiring. But the secretive National Security Agency needs more than a few good mathematicians and has sacrificed some of its cherished anonymity to recruit them.At a time when the NSA plans to trim its overall work force by about 15 percent, the high-technology spy agency near Fort Meade is aggressively recruiting people with degrees in mathematics.The agency, which refuses to cite numbers, already claims to be thelargest employer of mathematicians in the United States.

Paul Erdos,83, one of the century's most eminent mathematicians, died of a heart attack Friday in Warsaw, Poland, where he was attending an international conference of mathematicians.He founded the field of discrete mathematics, the foundation of computer science, and was known for his work in numbers theory, theory of sets and probability theory.Born in Budapest, Hungary, he moved to Britain in 1934 and settled in the United States four years later.A member of Britain's Royal Society and the national academies of Hungary, the Netherlands, the United States, Australia and India, he traveled all over the world to discuss mathematical problems with other academics.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. --Have you ever made a profit from a catering business or dog walking? Do you prefer to work alone or in groups? Have you ever set a world record in anything? The right answers could help get you a job at Google Inc. The company has always wanted to hire people with straight-A report cards and double 800s on their SATs. Now, like an Ivy League school, it is starting to look for more well-rounded candidates, such as those who have published books or started their own clubs.