The home stretch. Our presentation is put together, our paper is done, and we are almost done with our poster, too. We have practiced our presentation a few times on our own, and Friday we practiced for Dr. Peterson. Tomorrow, Monday, we will practice for Tanner in the afternoon. We present for real before the math professors and the other math program on Thursday!
Other than putting things together, this last week has been very chill with not much to do. Everyone is leaving Saturday to head home, and Whitney and I will be making the long drive from Lincoln to Evansville on Sunday. It's sad that it's almost over. It has been a great experience, and I will miss the friends I have made here very much. I am confident I will see Rich Ross again, as he is a brother in Christ, but as for the others, there certainly is a chance =)
All in all, this has definitely been one of my favorite summers, and by far one of the most enlightening and relaxing. Thank you to those who are still reading and have stuck with me faithfully through the whole summer!
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Thursday, July 11, 2013
The End is in Sight- The Last Piece of the Puzzle
Well, it looks like things are sort of wrapping up here for the math research. They have basically told us we don't need to research anything else new, even though we have asked for more. While we are definitely ready for more, it might be good to stop coming up with new material now and start to edit our work we already have and clean everything up, getting ready for the presentation in about two weeks. We have been typing everything up in tech as we go, so that makes things much easier, but we still should polish it up, make it clearer, and put in some more examples.
Yesterday we proved the hardest theorem - the uniqueness of the Laplace Transform (in the discrete case). A lot of our work we had already done assumed this, so after about a week of thinking and working on it, to have it proven finally is nice. It sure does feel like an accomplishment!
Yesterday we proved the hardest theorem - the uniqueness of the Laplace Transform (in the discrete case). A lot of our work we had already done assumed this, so after about a week of thinking and working on it, to have it proven finally is nice. It sure does feel like an accomplishment!
Monday, July 8, 2013
Another Relaxing Weekend
This has been one of the most relaxing summers I have ever had! Rich Ross went to D.C. for 4th of July to visit his wife there, so we didn't have him to hang out with, but we had Avery and Matt, from the REU, and we also Skyped Nate some. We went to a nearby town called Seward for 4th of July. They are well known for their celebration there. It's sort of an all-day thing, but we just went after dinner for the fireworks show, which was really good for a small town, but not quite as good as Evansville's. It was fun to go on a little road trip and walk around the small city trying to find the park where the fireworks were going to be.
Saturday night Whitney and I went to Texas Roadhouse and had a delicious steak dinner =) It was excellent! Sunday, yesterday, Rich came back and we hung out with him and Avery last night. It was a good time. We all had one piece of research we were supposed to look into over the weekend, but for me and Avery at least it doesn't look like ours will work out. We need to look at it as a group, but the math was getting pretty nasty, and it probably won't work. This afternoon we might get some more things to look at and work on.
Saturday night Whitney and I went to Texas Roadhouse and had a delicious steak dinner =) It was excellent! Sunday, yesterday, Rich came back and we hung out with him and Avery last night. It was a good time. We all had one piece of research we were supposed to look into over the weekend, but for me and Avery at least it doesn't look like ours will work out. We need to look at it as a group, but the math was getting pretty nasty, and it probably won't work. This afternoon we might get some more things to look at and work on.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Productivity!
Alright! I have been lax with my posting, so I am sorry for that. We have been busy with much math recently, and it's exciting. We haven't had much to do except regular classes most of the summer, and the past week or two, even that has been irregular. We finally were given a good direction to head for our research, now, and we have been working on that as a group the past two days.
Most of our work has been working with Laplace Transforms in a mixed time scale, and things are turning out splendidly. In the math world, apparently, everyone types up math in a language known as LaTex that lets you get all the special characters and formatting that you find in textbooks. So I have been learning to use an editor for LaTex, recently. It can be tedious, but it appeals to my programming side, so it's at least half fun, especially to see the nice formal results instead of scratches on paper.
We will be taking a break, I believe, from our math research for the next day at least, since it's 4th of July! I think we are going to a nearby town called Seward where there is apparently a huge 4th of July celebration and nice fireworks show. That should be fun. Everyone be safe and enjoy their 4th of July!
Most of our work has been working with Laplace Transforms in a mixed time scale, and things are turning out splendidly. In the math world, apparently, everyone types up math in a language known as LaTex that lets you get all the special characters and formatting that you find in textbooks. So I have been learning to use an editor for LaTex, recently. It can be tedious, but it appeals to my programming side, so it's at least half fun, especially to see the nice formal results instead of scratches on paper.
We will be taking a break, I believe, from our math research for the next day at least, since it's 4th of July! I think we are going to a nearby town called Seward where there is apparently a huge 4th of July celebration and nice fireworks show. That should be fun. Everyone be safe and enjoy their 4th of July!
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Hawaii Pictures
Not much to report, since not much has happened, but today we get our car back, in about an hour, and I'm very excited! We presented some of our individual research today, and that went well, and we sort of, but not really, got some new directions to explore. He said he needed to look into it more, but we will have some more to do soon.
So with all this free time, I have been working on the Hawaii pictures, and they are now done, commented and everything! So take a look. They are on Whitney's facebook. If you can't view them because you aren't facebook friends yet, just let one of us know (possibly through a comment on here?) or just call us or something. Oh, and there's a fire-dance video you should also check out. Very neat!
So with all this free time, I have been working on the Hawaii pictures, and they are now done, commented and everything! So take a look. They are on Whitney's facebook. If you can't view them because you aren't facebook friends yet, just let one of us know (possibly through a comment on here?) or just call us or something. Oh, and there's a fire-dance video you should also check out. Very neat!
Monday, June 24, 2013
Moving Along
Things have been going well. Not much to report, actually. The car is still in the shop, but we should get it back tomorrow all fixed up! We had a very pleasant weekend. Saturday we went to the zoo in Omaha, and it was wonderful. I can see why they say it is one of the top zoos in the country. We visited the desert dome first, and after that, we felt like we had already gotten our money's worth! They had a ton of stuff there, most notably the new desert dome, the giant indoor rain-forest, and the aquarium. The creatures of the night, underneath the desert dome, was also very impressive. The had an underground swamp with alligators and beavers and everything. One thing the zoo did VERY well, was put you in the environment. You are thrown right into the habitat of the animals, not just looking from a distance. Also worth mentioning is the beautiful butterfly/insect house. I had a butterfly come and land on me =)
Sunday we went to church, relaxed, read, I sorted through some of my magic cards Chad from church (at home) gave me, and after going out to eat and shopping at Walmart, Rich and Avery came over to play Settlers of Catan. We love that game.
Today, Monday, we got a day off, because Dr. Peterson is at a conference, Tanner is still out of town looking at houses in Oklahoma where he will be moving, and we finished all our assignments. We have developed a discrete Green's function, and we have been exploring its properties. They are much the same as the discrete case, I think. We then expanded it to a general time scale. I have helped in finding the max, first and second derivatives, and I was assigned recently to generalize the Lidstone boundary value problems in the discrete case. Now that we have gotten into research and not just class all the time, I'm really enjoying it. I can see myself enjoying math research later in life. I still don't know what branch of math I would want to go into, though. But I have time! I do need to start thinking about grad schools and applications soon, though....
Hope everyone is doing well!
Sunday we went to church, relaxed, read, I sorted through some of my magic cards Chad from church (at home) gave me, and after going out to eat and shopping at Walmart, Rich and Avery came over to play Settlers of Catan. We love that game.
Today, Monday, we got a day off, because Dr. Peterson is at a conference, Tanner is still out of town looking at houses in Oklahoma where he will be moving, and we finished all our assignments. We have developed a discrete Green's function, and we have been exploring its properties. They are much the same as the discrete case, I think. We then expanded it to a general time scale. I have helped in finding the max, first and second derivatives, and I was assigned recently to generalize the Lidstone boundary value problems in the discrete case. Now that we have gotten into research and not just class all the time, I'm really enjoying it. I can see myself enjoying math research later in life. I still don't know what branch of math I would want to go into, though. But I have time! I do need to start thinking about grad schools and applications soon, though....
Hope everyone is doing well!
Thursday, June 20, 2013
A Few Hectic Days...
Well, things have been pretty crazy lately. Monday night I got very sick from some unknown cause and ended up throwing up twice that night. I was out of commission all day Tuesday and was just laying in bed all day, pretty much. Yesterday, I missed morning class but felt OK enough to go to the afternoon class. By that time I was not feeling bad but was just weak. And today I woke up and felt great, but very hungry! I have been catching up today, because I felt behind, and I even got to play racquetball with my my group here.
I don't think I ever officially named my research group, here. There is Matt, Rich, Sarah, Avery, and me. Tanner Auch is our grad student who is leading most of the research goals, and Dr. Peterson is overseeing the whole adventure and is there to teach us and back us all up.
Ok, so back to chaos. In addition to being sick Monday, we also took our car into the shop Monday for what we thought was an alignment issue. We got a rental car, and Whitney has been driving that to work every day since then. Turns out the problem was not alignment, however, but was subframe corrosion. We were going to have the shop it was at fix the problem (they are very nice people, best I have seen), but my Dad, because he is awesome, found online that there had been a recall back in 2009 for exactly that problem. So after about 2 hours on the phone with the shop, the dealership, and Hyundai customer service (which was actually not bad at all!), we are getting the part and labor covered by the dealership in town here.
So that has made things a bit crazy around here recently. Poor Whitney has had to work hard all day, drive 45 minutes there and back and immediately turn around and drive about for another 30-45 minutes as we run errands and get this all figured out. But things are finally settling down, because today we got confirmation that the part will be in Monday, and the car should be fixed Monday or Tuesday. We will return our current rental car tonight, since we have extended it twice now, and we are getting a longer rent period with a better rate until Monday. Whew. I am looking forward to having our own car back!!!
All in all, things are still going well, though. We are hugely blessed that God kept us safe in a car that was deemed "not safe to drive, especially at high speeds or for long distances", especially considering we drove to Nebraska on it and then Whitney drove 45 min. each way to work a few days! So happy we are both safe! And the car, for that matter, could have been damaged a lot more.... So things are turning out alright.
I could write some more about research progress, but I think I will have more to say in a day or two, so I'll postpone that. For anyone dying to read the nitty-gritty stuff, sorry, but stay tuned!
I don't think I ever officially named my research group, here. There is Matt, Rich, Sarah, Avery, and me. Tanner Auch is our grad student who is leading most of the research goals, and Dr. Peterson is overseeing the whole adventure and is there to teach us and back us all up.
Ok, so back to chaos. In addition to being sick Monday, we also took our car into the shop Monday for what we thought was an alignment issue. We got a rental car, and Whitney has been driving that to work every day since then. Turns out the problem was not alignment, however, but was subframe corrosion. We were going to have the shop it was at fix the problem (they are very nice people, best I have seen), but my Dad, because he is awesome, found online that there had been a recall back in 2009 for exactly that problem. So after about 2 hours on the phone with the shop, the dealership, and Hyundai customer service (which was actually not bad at all!), we are getting the part and labor covered by the dealership in town here.
So that has made things a bit crazy around here recently. Poor Whitney has had to work hard all day, drive 45 minutes there and back and immediately turn around and drive about for another 30-45 minutes as we run errands and get this all figured out. But things are finally settling down, because today we got confirmation that the part will be in Monday, and the car should be fixed Monday or Tuesday. We will return our current rental car tonight, since we have extended it twice now, and we are getting a longer rent period with a better rate until Monday. Whew. I am looking forward to having our own car back!!!
All in all, things are still going well, though. We are hugely blessed that God kept us safe in a car that was deemed "not safe to drive, especially at high speeds or for long distances", especially considering we drove to Nebraska on it and then Whitney drove 45 min. each way to work a few days! So happy we are both safe! And the car, for that matter, could have been damaged a lot more.... So things are turning out alright.
I could write some more about research progress, but I think I will have more to say in a day or two, so I'll postpone that. For anyone dying to read the nitty-gritty stuff, sorry, but stay tuned!
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