Levi Leonard Conant, 1857—1916Longtime Faculty Member at WPI

Levi L. Conant was a mathematician and educator who spent mostof his career as a faculty member at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.He was head of the mathematics department from 1908 until hisdeath, and served as interim president from 1911 to 1913.

Conant was noted as an outstanding teacher, and an activescholar. He published a number of articles in scientific journals andwrote four textbooks: The Number Concept: Its Origins andDevelopment (1896), Original Exercises in Plane and SolidGeometry (1905), Five-Place Logarithmic and Trigonometric Tables(1909), and Plane and Spherical Trigonometry (1909).

Upon his premature death, in 1916, a large bequest was madeto The American Mathematical Society, which established theLevi L. Conant Prize, awarded annually to recognize the bestexpository paper published in either Notices of the AMS or theBulletin of the AMS during the previous five years.

Jeffrey WeeksJeffrey Weeks

The Shape of Space

Monday, March 24, 20083:00 p.m.Olin Hall, Room 107

When we look out on a clear night, theuniverse seems infinite. Yet this infinity mightbe an illusion. During the first half of thepresentation, computer games will introducethe concept of a “multiconnected universe.”

Interactive 3D graphics will then take theviewer on a tour of several possible shapes forspace. Finally, we'll see how recentsatellite data provide tantalizing clues to thetrue shape of our universe.

The only prerequisites for this talk arecuriosity and imagination. Middle school andhigh school students, people interested inastronomy, and all members of the WPIcommunity are welcome to attend.

LEVILEVI L . CONANTL. CONANTLECTURE SERIESLECTURE SERIES

Jeffrey Weeks, an independent scholar residingin New York state, has received the 2007 AMSLevi L. Conant Prize for his article "The PoincaréDodecahedral Space and the Mystery of theMissing Fluctuations," Notices of the AMS,June/July 2004.

In this article, together with an earlier one,"Measuring the Space of the Universe"(Notices, December 1998), co-authored withNeil Cornish, Weeks explains how extremelysensitive measurements of microwave radiationacross the sky provide information about the ori-gins and shape of the universe. Weeks discusseswhat kind of shape our universe could have. Thethree possibilities are a spherical universe, aEuclidean universe, or a universe that is ahyperbolic 3-manifold.

"Weeks has explained the mathematics behindmodels whose validity cosmologists debate whilewaiting for more experimental evidence... Weekshas given a rare glimpse into the role of mathe-matics in the development and testing of physi-cal theories," the prize citation says.

In 1999 Weeks was awarded a MacArthur"genius" fellowship and now works as afreelance mathematician. He is well known forhis geometry and topology software, as well asfor his work in cosmology.

Sponsored by WPI and hosted by the Department of Mathematical SciencesCoffee and tea will be available a half hour before the lecture

Participation of faculty and students is most welcome

www.wpi.edu/+Math/News/conant.html 2007-261