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I'm Jamie Weigandt, I am graduate student in the department of mathematics specializing in Algorithmic Number Theory, Arithmetic Algebraic Geometry, and Arithmetic Statistics.
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==Jamie Weigandt==
  
= Note on this page  =
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[[Image:jamie.jpg|160px]]
  
For the time being I will use LaTeX code freely when editing this page.  
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Jamie Weigandt is an alumnus of the Purdue mathematics department (2008) and starting his third year of graduate studies in the same department. He's beginning his second year in the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program studying Algebra and Number Theory with Prof. Edray Goins. He's particularly interested computational and statistical questions concerning the arithmetic of elliptic curves.
  
== Random Thoughts About Rhea as I use it  ==
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= Note on this page  =
 
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*Can we add LaTeX functionality with jsmath, at least for the pages relevant to mathematicians?
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*Can we add the option to "Open Poor editior in a new window"? The sidebar gets too big when I increase the font size to see in safari.
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= The Bigfoot Project  =
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As a motivating project for learning a lot of background material I am engaged in what I consider a mythical quest to find an elliptic curve over $\Bbb Q$ with torsion subgroup $Z_2 \times Z_8$ and Mordell-Weil rank at least 4. Such a curve is affectionally referred to by my friends and I as "The Bigfoot." This nomenclature is somewhat misleading, such a curve, should it exist is not by any stretch of the imagination expected to be unique. I hope to expound on the status of this project at a later date.
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For now I will be motivated in my development of this page by 3 facts:
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*My bank account is suffering from conference fatigue.
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*There is an essay contest for which I can win $100.
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*I'd like to stop eating at Taco Bell.
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That being said I'll get right to this following section:
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= Why do I "math"? =
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I spent the last couple days thinking about this question and trying to give a suitable answer. More and more however, I found myself getting bogged down in details, and my exposition was raising more questions than it was answering. Then suddenly I recalled a conversation I had with a friend in late June. We were discussing how our lives could sometimes be dominated by our travel schedules. Then, in a moment of frustration, she asked me the very question at hand. "Why do we do this?" In the context of this conversation, with her as my audience, I was able to give a concise and confident three-word answer to this question. "Because it's awesome!"
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Unfortunately I cannot fully describe the context of that conversation, or even the tone of my response, in plain text. I recently attended [http://www.msri.org/communications/vmath/VMathVideos/VideoInfo/4777/show_video this lecture] by Lloyd Kilford. During his talk, Lloyd alluded to a novel he was reading wherein the hero of the story is being prepared to consult a great and powerful oracle. The hero's priest advises him to, "pray that his answer, which will be true, will be meaningfully true to you." At this point, my response is probably not meaningfully true to you, unless you are already someone who is passionate about mathematics. To alleviate this, I'm expound upon my response by describing what I think are some of the most awesome things about doing mathematics.
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== We're the Rockstars of Science! ==
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I don't deny that personally am a nerd, in fact I'm proud to have caused* one professor in my department to say, "this is why you can't eat dinner with nerds!" In September of 2009 I was at a conference on Galois theory and explicit methods at the University of Warwick in the UK ... [Continue Story about Gunnels]... lunch time
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[Beard's Explaining / The Brian May Effect]
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*Joint work with Lloyd Kilford. : )
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== My Personal Quest for Truth ==
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Have you ever spent years searching for something?
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For the time being I will use LaTeX code freely when editing this page. When the jsmath plugin is installed it should TeX on the fly in your browser.
  
== The Legends of the People Around Us ==
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= Projects =
  
Mathematics is full of very interesting characters who have done amazing and beautiful work. These people have an incredible passion for the subject and their attitudes are extremely contagious.
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I'm hoping to use this space to describe some of my current projects. These include
  
== Extraverted Mathematicians: They Look at Your Feet while Speaking ==
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* A database of Elliptic Curves with Prescribed Torsion
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* Connections between the Mordell-Weil ranks and Szpiro Ratios of elliptic curves
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* Finding elliptic curves of conductor less than $10^6$ which do not appear in the Stein-Watkins database.
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* Transfers that Track Down Atypical ABC Triples. (I was feeling whimsical... deal with it!)
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* Work with Matt Davis and James Ryan concerning the Erdös-Woods problem.
  
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There are also a number of current developments in the field that I will be trying to learn about. These include
  
==The List==
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* The work of Mazur and Rubin reducing Hilbert's Tenth Problem for the rings of integers of number fields to the Shafarevich-Tate conjecture.
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* The work of Bhargava the average size of Selmer groups of elliptic curves.
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* Heath-Brown's result on the distribution of Selmer ranks of elliptic curves, and the subsequent generalization to "generic" curves with full two-torsion by Swinnerton-Dyer.
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* The two recent proofs of the ABC conjecture for the ring of entire functions. I will need to learn some Nevanlinna theory to understand this business.
  
The following topics are in no particular order... yet!
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= Essay Contest Entry =
  
*Relating to other mathematicians
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If you're looking for my essay contest entry for "Why do I 'math'?", it can be found [[Why_do_I_math_-_Weigandt | here ]].
*Being an expert
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*Engaging in a personal quest for truth
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*Being akin to rockstars
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*Moments when you realize that you've "done it already!"
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*The simplicity of Mathematics compared with the rest of our lives
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*The permanence of mathematics
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*Telling Stories about mathematics
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Latest revision as of 05:18, 13 August 2010

Jamie Weigandt

Jamie.jpg

Jamie Weigandt is an alumnus of the Purdue mathematics department (2008) and starting his third year of graduate studies in the same department. He's beginning his second year in the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program studying Algebra and Number Theory with Prof. Edray Goins. He's particularly interested computational and statistical questions concerning the arithmetic of elliptic curves.

Note on this page

For the time being I will use LaTeX code freely when editing this page. When the jsmath plugin is installed it should TeX on the fly in your browser.

Projects

I'm hoping to use this space to describe some of my current projects. These include

  • A database of Elliptic Curves with Prescribed Torsion
  • Connections between the Mordell-Weil ranks and Szpiro Ratios of elliptic curves
  • Finding elliptic curves of conductor less than $10^6$ which do not appear in the Stein-Watkins database.
  • Transfers that Track Down Atypical ABC Triples. (I was feeling whimsical... deal with it!)
  • Work with Matt Davis and James Ryan concerning the Erdös-Woods problem.

There are also a number of current developments in the field that I will be trying to learn about. These include

  • The work of Mazur and Rubin reducing Hilbert's Tenth Problem for the rings of integers of number fields to the Shafarevich-Tate conjecture.
  • The work of Bhargava the average size of Selmer groups of elliptic curves.
  • Heath-Brown's result on the distribution of Selmer ranks of elliptic curves, and the subsequent generalization to "generic" curves with full two-torsion by Swinnerton-Dyer.
  • The two recent proofs of the ABC conjecture for the ring of entire functions. I will need to learn some Nevanlinna theory to understand this business.

Essay Contest Entry

If you're looking for my essay contest entry for "Why do I 'math'?", it can be found here .

Alumni Liaison

Recent Math PhD now doing a post-doctorate at UC Riverside.

Kuei-Nuan Lin