Leonard C. Sulski Memorial Lecture in Mathematics

Frank Farris to Present "The Edge of the Universe: Noneuclidean Wallpaper"

This reasoning breaks down if you and your measuring devices shrink as you approach the edge, making it infinitely far away. We show a mathematical model of such a universe, called the Poincare Upper Halfplane, and study some of its features. Physics suggests that this turns out to be a cold and lonely place, but we make beautiful wallpaper for the inhabitants. (Hint: in the picture above, all of the fan shapes are exactly the same size.)

The 11th annual Leonard C. Sulski Memorial Lecture in Mathematics will take place on Monday, March 22 at 8 p.m. in Hogan 519. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Professor Frank Farris, of Santa Clara University, will give this year’s lecture, titled "The Edge of the Universe: Noneuclidean Wallpaper."

Farris earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981. He taught for three years as a Tamarkin Assistant Professor at Brown University before joining Santa Clara, where he has been a member of the mathematics and computer science department since 1984. Farris won the Trevor Evans Award in 2002 from the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) for his expository article, “The Edge of the Universe,” which appeared in the journal Math Horizons, and is currently the editor of Mathematics Magazine, an official publication of the MAA. In 1997, he was awarded the David E. Logothetti Teaching Award at Santa Clara. His research interests include the geometry of two-dimensional surfaces in four-dimensional space and symmetry. His talk at Holy Cross will explore the concept of symmetry in hyperbolic geometry. It will be aimed at a general mathematical audience.

The annual mathematical lecture series is a tribute to Leonard C. Sulski who taught in the mathematics department at Holy Cross from 1965 until his death from leukemia in 1991.

The lecture will be preceded by a dinner co-sponsored by the mathematics and computer science department and the Northeastern Section of the MAA. The dinner is open to the public for a price of $15. If you are interested in participating in the dinner, please contact Professor Thomas Cecil at 508.793.2719 or by e-mail at cecil@mathcs.holycross.edu by March 15.