Midterm Report

Due Tuesday, 12 Nov 2002.

Prepare a document that consolidates your work in the seminar so far, and sets some plans for the future.

Briefly outline what you've learned so far.
Assemble documentation for projects you've undertaken -- including notes, references, pictures, computer programs, etc.
Describe what you are most confused about.
Describe what you are most curious to learn more about.
Propose one or more projects of your own devising to complete before the end of the term.
Projects might involve:
- Learning independently about a new topic, and presenting a short lecture, a written outline, or a demonstration;
- Investigating in depth in a subject touched on in the seminar already;
- Completing and polishing a project already started in or suggested by the seminar;
- Making a sculpture, a collection of natural objects, a physical apparatus, or another display related to this seminar.
- Seeking out scientific or sociological arenas in which the mathematics of the seminar plays a role;
- Creating and documenting a computer program so it can be used by others;
- Using dynamics, fractals or randomness in the composition of a short story or a piece of music;
- Experimenting with the behavior of a dynamical system, a random process or a geometric construction;
- Applying mathematics to model a natural phenomenon (spoken English, weather, sidewalk cracks, the stock market, etc...)
- Something radical, unexpected and enlightening...
Describe the final form your project(s) will take (a paper, a piece of music, a short lecture, an outline, a web page, etc.)