Author Archives: Xander

About Xander

Xander is interested in pure mathematics and mathematics education. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics with an emphasis in statistics from the University of Nevada, Reno, and has completed a teacher preparation program at the same institution. After completing his student teaching, he was unable to find gainful employment as a teacher, and has therefore retreated behind the ivory walls of academia in order to complete a master's degree in mathematics. As part of a teaching assistantship designed to help defray the cost of his education, Xander is also teaching remedial algebra at the university.

Updates

Posted on 13 June 2013 by Xander

In the interest of not letting too much time go by without a word, a couple of quick updates: Thesis: Defended My thesis defense in April went very well. There is a professor in the mathematics department at UNR who … Continue reading →

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Thesis Defense

Posted on 14 April 2013 by Xander

In five days, I will be defending my masters thesis. Whee!

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MMM LXVII

Posted on 18 March 2013 by Xander
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MMM LXVI

Posted on 4 March 2013 by Xander
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Finding a Limit

Posted on 19 February 2013 by Xander

This semester, I am assisting my advisor with his honors calculus class. As he is out of town today, I will be giving the lecture. We decided to show off a rather beautiful little bit of mathematics which makes use … Continue reading →

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Pythagorean Ginger Cookies

Posted on 13 February 2013 by Xander

For the last several months, I have been working hard on getting my masters thesis written. This is a somewhat tedious activity—the research phase is essentially done, and now I have to get everything typed up all nicely. Other interests … Continue reading →

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The Fundamental Theorem of Algebra

Posted on 23 January 2013 by Xander

An Analogy When cooking, we need three things: a collection of ingredients (say butter, sugar, flour, &c.), a description of a technique for combining them (a recipe), and some tools for actually getting the work done (bowls and knives, as … Continue reading →

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Ten Factorial Seconds?!

Posted on 18 October 2012 by Xander

Here’s an interesting little problem that came across my desk this afternoon: how much time is \(10!\) seconds? Is it a duration that is best measured in seconds? days? centuries? And, perhaps more importantly, what is the best way of … Continue reading →

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GREs

Posted on 15 October 2012 by Xander

I took the GRE subject exam in mathematics Saturday morning. It was a pretty brutal test. The algebra, topology, and analysis all seemed pretty straight-forward, but the linear algebra and calculus computations kicked my ass (much as I expected). Now … Continue reading →

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Newton Fractals

Posted on 2 October 2012 by Xander

The question of solvability is one of the driving questions in mathematics. That is, given an equation, can it be solved? and if so, what are the solutions? There are some equations that are very easily solved. For instance, the … Continue reading →

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