2008-04-29 13:05MATH 880 PROSEMINAR JT SMITHOUTLINE 35 SPRING 20081. Assignmenta. Are there further questions about the social organization of mathematics?b. Would somebody take a look at Higham 1993, chapter 9, and report to us soonabout what it says concerning the presentation guidelines we’ve been discuss-ing?c. I googled “presentation guidelines” (without quotes) and found some interest-ing websites. Perhaps some of you could look at them and/or find others?i.http://classweb.gmu.edu/WAC/somguide/presentationguidelines.htmii. http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/keystep1.htmliii. http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~bart/739/talk-guide.html2. Germain paper. We completed this discussion. Here are the rest of my comments.a. Paragraph Sophie Germain’s correspondence.i. I like this paragraph. I bet you worked hard on it.ii. Do you see why I inserted the comma? It separates accomplish from that, which onemight slur together when reading quickly. It also makes you stop, and that little silencelends emphasis to unable without your using italics that distract. (Oh: notice thegenitive subject of using there.)b. Paragraph In 1808 a.i. I suspect you mean patterns. But you might mean patter as in pitter-patter.ii. Was 3000 francs a pittance or a fortune?iii. Generally we try to identify people more specifically. My own policy is that firstmentions in a subdivision bigger than a paragraph merit almost-full names, such asJames T. Smith. Sometimes first mentions in a whole work merit complete names anddates as well, such as (1939–). Later mentions can use surnames only, unless you haveto distinguish me from other Smiths. My point is that although I know who three ofthe five judges were, I’m not sure about Lacroix (there may have been more than onescientist with that rather common name) and I never heard of Malus, so wonder whohe is.iv. You didn’t mention Legendre earlier as her mentor.v. Citation of Chladni’s book would be interesting. But it might not be easily available.If I didn’t find it listed in Melvyl, I would have worded your footnote this way:Bucciarelli 1980 (page 35) noted that Chladni quoted the announcement of the contest in hisbook Traité d’acoustique.But I would try hard to find the date and publisher of the book, and even to find the announce-ment therein, so that my footnote could read,Chladni (date, page) quoted the announcement of the contest.[Added later: it’s in Melvyl.]vi. There are several ways to avoid comma pileup (you have three) around dates:(1) SG’s entry was the only one the acad. had rec’d. by the October 11, 1811, dead-line. (two commas) (2) SG’s entry was the only one the acad. had rec’d. by the deadline, 11 October1811. (one comma)(3) At the 11 October 1811 deadline SG’s entry ... . (no commas)c. Paragraph In 1811, because.Page 2 MATH 880 SPRING 2008 OUTLINE 352008-04-29 13:05i. You have some tense errors: you used past (was not) where pluperfect was appropriate,and present (can) where past was appropriate. You’ll have trouble finding guidelinesfor those.ii. The inline formula should be rendered (1/r) + (1/rr). Remember, italics for variables.You’ll have to fish for the proper prime.iii. You probably mean double integrals.iv. You need to download and learn to use MathType for the displayed equation. It’s freeto SFSU students.v. You should have said what r,rr,x,y,z,k stand for.vi. You just answered a question: in differential equations classes I’ve often told studentsI didn’t know of applications of differential equations of order higher than two. NowI do: this has order four!vii. It would be stronger to say focused on deriving rather than focused on trying to derive.Just last night I was watching a rather deplorable drama, Unit. When a sergeantpledged, “Yes sir, I’ll try to do that in the future!” his master sergeant replied, “Ser-geant, that means you’ll fail to do it!”viii. You’re falling apart a bit because you’re unsure of yourself. You just wrote, “she didnot have the fundamental understanding needed to fully understand”. It would beclearer to write “she did not understand”.d. Paragraph Once again, Germain.i. Hypotheses are generally propositions presented without full justification. So I don’tknow what this means.ii. The honorable mention is interesting. I’ve been dealing with awards of the Loba-chevsky Prize by the faculty of the University of Kazan about a century later. For oneof those competitions they had more than one entry, I believe, but decided to award onlyan honorable mention. (My guy Pieri won honorable mention in 1904, outclassed bythe winner, Hilbert.)e. Paragraph Once again, Germain. You should generally spell out small numbers, except whenreferred to as numbers: three students scored 4 points and two scored 2.5 each. It’s clearer.f. Paragraph Regardless of the.i. What academy?ii. I suspect there’s a missing word or phrase in the quote, because independently doesn’tseem to modify anything.iii. The way to do references is to give a complete citation in the bibliography (but notspecific page numbers unless the work cited is part of something else). Then you puta footnote (or endnote or inline note) indicating that item, with the appropriate pageor section number. So your footnote could read simply Bucciarelli 1980, 108. That wayyou can cite many different places in the same work without much ado. Look at myPieri book as an example.g. Paragraph Throughout her attempts. You’ve a case of a near-double-negative: without ... notleading. In English this literally means with ... leading. I suggested a rewording.h. Paragraph Once Germain received.i. Ohhh, you missed a gender inequity! How many theorems named for male mathemati-cians have you heard of whose names include the forename as well! Only when neces-sary to distinguish male mathematicians with the same surname, as the Bernouillis,or Beppo and Fritz Levi. Female forenames, or the inclusion of Miss or Mrs. in a listof names otherwise undecorated, was common until very recently.ii. The last sentence of this paragraph is unintelligible: you transcribed somethingincorrectly.i. Paragraph This work is.i. I marked a run-on sentence. It needs to be split, because you want to greatly emphasizethe individual thoughts in this concluding paragraph. ii. You should— very much should— have figured out who Libri was, given full informa-tion, and cited the publication details of the