A Mathematical Festival

I spent last week at the Joint Math Meetings in Baltimore. The JMM is an annual gathering of thousands of mathematicians, and this was the sixth time I've attended. I always love it. People who do math gather from all around the world, and to me it always feels like a big festival. People talk about their research, their teaching, and their projects. They see old friends and meet new ones. All the publishers come with books and software, and there's even a mathematical art exhibit.

So what did I specifically do last week?

1. Jacques and I presented our research! Jacques presented work from one of the group's 2012 papers, and I presented the result from the paper we published last spring. Our talks were well attended, and several people asked questions, both of which were exciting! We were in a session on extremal and structural problems in graph theory, so we also heard some talks on topics closely related to our own work.

2. I went to a lot of talks. Maybe around 50? I love going to talks because even when they're short and don't go deep into details, I learn so much. Most of these talks were ten or twenty-five minute research presentations on graph theory and combinatorics, which are the areas in which I'm most comfortable, but I also saw some talks on number theory, mathematical modeling, mathematical fiber arts (crocheting polyominoes, for example), partial differential equations, and the impact of summer math camps. I went to two large lectures. The first focused on topological graph theory, and the second was about math in animation and computer graphics.

3. I talked to people. There was a Mathcamp reunion, so I saw campers and staff from my two years at camp and met people from other years. I had a couple of really good conversations with Mathcamp staff about math and engineering. I also saw people I've met through Research Science Institute and Math Prize for Girls. I talked to some of the people who were at lots of the graph theory sessions, I met a couple of Wellesley students, and I even met someone while looking through books in the exhibits! Talking to new people is something I haven't done very well at previous JMMs, and even if I wasn't great at it this year, I was definitely better.

4. I bought two books! All the book publishers come to the meetings and have fantastic books on sale. After going through the exhibits a couple of times, I ended up with a list of thirteen interesting books, and I ended up buying two. They're both related to partial differential equations, specifically fluid dynamics, and I'm very excited to read them!

5. I ate a lot of good food. The meetings were in Baltimore, which meant delicious crab. I had crab cakes, crab soup, and shrimp and salmon stuffed with crab. The Mathcamp reunion was at a Turkish restaurant, and eating there felt like being back in Azerbaijan. My father and I found a place right on the harbor called Lenny's Deli which served good omelets, so we went there for breakfast most days.

All of these are the ways I love the JMM.

Thoughts on Soviet Union History

While at Olin, I'm required to taken seven Arts, Humanities, or Social Science (AHS) classes. One of those is the first semester AHS foundation, and another is The Entrepreneurial Initiative. I get to choose the other five. Three of those five have to form a concentration of some kind. Because my Azerbaijani language classes from the summer transferred as two AHS courses, I wanted to take another related class to finish a concentration. I took The Tragic Colossus, a Soviet Union history class, at Wellesley. Here are my thoughts on Soviet.

Thoughts on Bayesian Inference and Reasoning

Dynamics and Transport were both mechanical engineering major requirements. I also took two classes that fulfilled general graduation requirements. The first of these was Bayesian Inference and Reasoning, which counted as my probability and statistics course.