Mathematics Professor to Speak at Faculty Forum
Posted on Friday, October 24, 2008
Dr. Barbara Faires, Westminster College professor of mathematics, will speak on "The Scottish Café" at Faires Faculty Forum Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 11:40 a.m. in the Sebastian Mueller Theater in the McKelvey Campus Center.
Café Szkocka, or Scottish Café, in Lwow, Poland, became the gathering place for mathematicians between the two World Wars. They met almost daily to discuss problems of common interest. It has been said that the café work culture is the Polish way of doing mathematics.
A notebook was kept at the café. Mathematicians would write problems on which they were working, along with a listing of prizes for the solution. The last problem in the book concerns a mathematician who always carried two boxes of matches, one in his right pocket and one in his left, and would pick a box at random to light his pipe. The problem deals with the probable number of matches in the box.
Faires said, "My dissertation advisor at Kent State introduced me to the Polish way of doing mathematics. It's fun, and I hope I can share some of the fun with colleagues who are not mathematicians."
Faires, who has been with Westminster over 30 years, earned her undergraduate degree from East Carolina University, master's from the University of South Carolina, and Ph.D. from Kent State University.
Faculty Forum was established in 1990 by Faires during her term as Dean of the College and Vice President for Academic Affairs. Faculty members from all disciplines volunteer to present lectures on their current research, artistic productions, and/or scholarship of teaching and learning. Each forum presents new ideas with innovative lecture techniques.
Contact Faires at (724) 946-7293 or e-mail faires@westminster.edu for more information.
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