HU math professor, student to present research at seminar
FOR RELEASE: Sunday, October 24, 2010
Huntington, Ind. - Over the summer, Huntington University mathematics professor Dr. Winfield Wetherbee along with mathematics student Jared Grandlienard studied the properties and applications of the family tree of Primitive Pythagorean Triples. They plan to present their research during a special seminar at 4 p.m. Nov. 5 in Hiner Hall in the Science Hall on the Huntington University campus. Wetherbee is a professor of mathematical sciences at Huntington University. Grandlienard is a senior mathematics major from Bluffton, Ind.
Their research centers around the concept that the mathematical equations in this family tree can be traced to three parent equations that each produce three such "children," and so on. Their research has also been submitted for publication. The articles are "An Algorithm Which Lists PPTs in Ascending Order According to Certain Attributes" which was submitted to Math Horizons, which is published by The Mathematical Association of America; and "Locating Relatively Prime Pairs of Positive Integers of Opposite Parity Within Their Family Tree" which was submitted to The Mathematical Gazette, published in Great Britain.
The seminar will focus on these two articles. A Java Applet was also added to the Huntington University website to illustrate the outcome from this sorting method of Primitive Pythagorean Triplets, as described above. The Applet can be viewed at http://www.huntington.edu/math/triples/triplets.htm.
This research is supported by the Ferne and Audry Hammel Research Endowment.
The seminar is free and open to the public.
_crop.jpg?w=472&h=472&fit=crop-center)