Term Project ideas, Math for Poets 2007

The term project is a written paper on a subject which has relations with mathematics in one way or another. So it must have some mathematical content, but it need not be a mathematical paper in the strict sense of the word. A discussion of the historical, cultural and economic apects of your subject can also be included. The length should be between 6 and 10 typed pages (double space, excluding the pictures). At the end of the semester each student gives a presentation of his or her paper.
Here are some suggestions for subjects. But you are entirely free to select another subject. In any case, make sure it is approved by your teachers.

• Cryptography: you can download a free CD-rom from Simon Singh's pages. A possible subject is the Enigma machine, for which there is an incredible amount of information on the internet. You can even build your own paper Enigma toy machine.
• Moire patterns: here is the website of a book on Moire patterns. This site includes a downloadable collection of Moire pictures to be printed on transparencies. You need to know how to view Postscript (with Ghostview available on UCU computers). Beside this site there is far more material available, for example the English wikipedia article.
• Magic squares: A German site on magic squares is a nice starting point. In the section "construction" you find loads of methods for interactive construction of magic squares, but you have to find their description elsewhere. For example wikipedia.
• Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott, a social satire on Victorian England which takes place in a world which is purely two-dimensional. The full text is available online. Read it and write a review together with some background information. See also the history of Mathematics site from assignment I. There is a sequel by Dionys Burger (a Dutchman who lived in Zeist): Sphereland (1965).
• Fermat's last theorem. A good starting point is Simon Singh's Fermat Corner but there are loads of other references (please ask). There is a wonderful BBC-documentary about this subject which you can view (with Dutch commentary and interviews in English).

The chapters of the book we did not deal with also form interesting to fascinating subject material. Here are a few suggestions, section numbers refer to both 1st and 2nd edition of the book.

• Knots and links, Section 5.4.
• Fractals, Section 6.3.
• Mandelbrot sets, Section 6.4 (fascinating, but for the more mathematically inclined, complex numbers are required).
• Chaos, Section 6.5 (with hands on experience on a pocket calculator).
• Soothing Symmetry and spinning pinwheels, Sections 4.4 (not easy, but very interesting).