Middletown Mayor Dominique Thornton declared Nov. 10 Robert Rosenbaum Day in honor of the retired Wesleyan professor’s work with the Project to Increase Mastery of Mathematics and Sciences (PIMMS). Thornton announced the honor at the annual Shackleton Memorial Lecture, which was delivered on Tuesday by Princeton University professor Manjul Bhargava.
Rosenbaum is professor emeritus of mathematics at Wesleyan. He founded PIMMS in 1979. The program runs math and science workshops designed to educate teachers so they can incorporate technology and creative teaching techniques in their curriculum. Rosenbaum served as director until 1994 and still sits on the board as the chair.
“We are honoring [Rosenbaum] as one of our distinguished citizens,” Thornton said. “Not only because of all of his academic achievements both at Wesleyan as well as other universities, but particularly because he founded [PIMMS]. I wish I had a thousand Bob Rosenbaums in the city of Middletown. It is my pleasure to honor him.”
Since 1979, PIMMS has grown exponentially. Currently, 150 teachers and 150,000 students in Connecticut benefit from the improvements it oversees. PIMMS is closely connected with Wesleyan. It has office space on campus, and collaborates with many faculty members in its programs.
According to Rosenbaum, the initiative was started as “a dozen individuals concerned about math education in Connecticut.”
Bhargava’s lecture, entitled “Linguistics, Drumming, and Mathematics,” was delivered as part of the PIMMS twenty-fifth anniversary celebration. He is a professor of mathematics at Princeton University and is well-known for his work in number theory. In addition, he is an avid tabla player. The tabla is an Indian drum, which has complex non-western rhythms at its base.
Bhargava has always been committed to finding ways to broaden mathematics’ appeal. He began his lecture by acknowledging Rosenbaum and his project.
“Increasing mastery of math and science has been one of my passions,” Bhargava said. “So I salute Bob Rosenbaum and PIMMS. It is very inspiring.”
Bhargava became interested in mathematics and linguistics as a result of his grandfather teaching him about Sanskrit poetry, which has mathematics at its core. The poetry is based on different combinations of long and short syllables. The number of different combinations can be figured out by what we today know as the Fibonacci number sequence and Pascal’s triangle, both of which were discovered in ancient times by Sanskrit poet and linguists Hemachandra and Pingal respectively.
Bhargava demonstrated some of the concepts he described by playing the tabla, an instrument for which he possesses great prowess. His musical acumen delighted of the packed Exley Science Auditorium, which responded in applause after every rhythm was played.
The rhythms and mathematics behind the drumming and poetry have many other popular applications. Bhargava explained how they are used in codes on NASA missions, as identifiers in data structures, and in popular card tricks. The applications of the Fibonacci sequence and Pascal’s triangle extend into nature, art, architecture, and the human body.
The lecture was well received by the audience, who appeared amazed by Bhargava’s skill at elucidating extremely complex topics.
“It was extremely interesting,” said Matt Franco ’07. “He simplified a very difficult topic. I just have one question for the professor: What’s it like to be disgustingly brilliant?”
Albert Hill ’07 echoed these sentiments.
“He related a lot of things together in a way that made it easy to follow along,” he said.
The lecture was co-sponsored by PIMMS, the Edward W. Snowdon Fund, the Mathematics Department, Admission and Continuing Studies at Wesleyan University.
The PIMMS organization can be found on the web at http://www.wesleyan.ed/pimms.
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