Presentation

[stoutfellow]

The second of my Senior Project students for this semester made her presentation yesterday, and did a fine job. The title was Regiomontanus and Spherical Trigonometry; the presentation consisted mostly of proofs of the spherical versions of the Law of Sines and the Law of Cosines. The mathematics wasn't particularly difficult, but it did require considerable powers of visualization - enough so that one of the examiners had some difficulty with it - and there was a fair amount of case analysis involved. I was especially pleased with how she handled that. Typically there were three cases, depending on whether the angles involved were acute or obtuse, and each required the construction of several auxiliary points and arcs. Each time, she laid out the constructions in all three cases first, and then carried out the rest of the proof, which was essentially the same in all cases. This was neat and economical, and thus aesthetically pleasing. The examiners asked for some minor typographical corrections, improved diagrams, and - in an appendix - some background material, but otherwise her written paper was excellently done. I'm proud of her.

Comments

[selenite.livejournal.com]

At TRW I wound up using magic marker on tennis balls a few times. The 3-D orbit analysis software was only useful when I'd already figured out what I was looking for.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

The third examiner - the one who was having trouble visualizing - did bring along a tennis ball, and my student tried drawing on it with chalk. Didn't work very well...