Plenary Speaker
9:00 - 10:00 AM EDT (US New York time)
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Professor Susan Goldstine
Professor Susan Goldstine
St. Mary’s College of Maryland, USA
Talk title: The Long and Winding Road to Non-Euclidean Geometry
Abstract: Euclid's Parallel Postulate (heavily paraphrased): Given a line and a point not on that line, there is exactly one line through the given point parallel to the given line.
Euclid's fifth postulate spawned the longest-standing controversy in the history of mathematics. Could it really be that the fifth postulate does not follow from the other four? Why does Euclid prove the converse of his fifth postulate but not the fifth postulate itself? Only after two thousand years of failed attempts to demonstrate the Parallel Postulate was it finally established that the statement cannot be proven or disproven from Euclid's other postulates, and that assuming its opposite yields a new and radically different form of plane geometry. We will examine the events leading to this discovery, which heralded a revolution in modern mathematics, and explore the properties of the non-Euclidean plane. If you know that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180º, then you are well equipped to follow our journey.
Bio: Susan Goldstine received her A.B. in Mathematics and French from Amherst College and her Ph.D. in Mathematics from Harvard University. For over a decade, her artworks have appeared in mathematical art exhibits across the US and around the world. Her art and research center around handcrafts, particularly knitting, crochet, and beadwork, and their connections to various mathematical fields, including abstract algebra, combinatorics, and topology. The 2014 book Crafting Conundrums: Puzzles and Patterns for the Bead Crochet Artist, which she cowrote with computer scientist and artist Dr. Ellie Baker, collects their extensive research on the mathematics of bead crochet.
Susan is Professor of Mathematics at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, where she has been on the faculty since 2004, a member of the Bridges Organization Board of Directors, co-organizer of the Bridges Math + Fashion show, and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts. Her guiding principle is that a professor’s office can never have too many toys.
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