100 Years of Math Milestones: The Pi Mu Epsilon Centennial Collection

Book excerpt: This book is an outgrowth of a collection of 100 problems chosen to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the undergraduate math honor society Pi Mu Epsilon. Each chapter describes a problem or event, the progress made, and connections to entries from other years or other parts of mathematics. In places, some knowledge of analysis or algebra, number theory or probability will be helpful. Put together, these problems will be appealing and accessible to energetic and enthusiastic math majors and aficionados of all stripes. Stephan Ramon Garcia is WM Keck Distinguished Service Professor and professor of mathematics at Pomona College. He is the author of four books and over eighty research articles in operator theory, complex analysis, matrix analysis, number theory, discrete geometry, and other fields. He has coauthored dozens of articles with students, including one that appeared in The Best Writing on Mathematics: 2015. He is on the editorial boards of Notices of the AMS, Proceedings of the AMS, American Mathematical Monthly, Involve, and Annals of Functional Analysis. He received four NSF research grants as principal investigator and five teaching awards from three different institutions. He is a fellow of the American Mathematical Society and was the inaugural recipient of the Society's Dolciani Prize for Excellence in Research. Steven J. Miller is professor of mathematics at Williams College and a visiting assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He has published five books and over one hundred research papers, most with students, in accounting, computer science, economics, geophysics, marketing, mathematics, operations research, physics, sabermetrics, and statistics. He has served on numerous editorial boards, including the Journal of Number Theory, Notices of the AMS, and the Pi Mu Epsilon Journal. He is active in enrichment and supplemental curricular initiatives for elementary and secondary mathematics, from the Teachers as Scholars Program and VCTAL (Value of Computational Thinking Across Grade Levels), to numerous math camps (the Eureka Program, HCSSiM, the Mathematics League International Summer Program, PROMYS, and the Ross Program). He is a fellow of the American Mathematical Society, an at-large senator for Phi Beta Kappa, and a member of the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee, where he sees firsthand the challenges of applying mathematics.