Final Project

This is a group project, involving two or three students per group (four groups of three each, and one group of two). In this project each group will give an oral presentation to your classmates (and me J) on Tuesday, October 23^rd. These presentations should each last no more than 25 minutes (we need to fit 5 presentations into the morning). You should feel free to use whatever presentation technique you feel appropriate to the topic (chalk, Powerpoint, other visual aids etc.) The projects will all be concerned with applications of the ideas of calculus. You will find a list of topics below; for each of these topics I have some source material to get you started.

Please let me know the members of your group, and the topic you have chosen. These are first come, first served – all topics should be distinct!

Twenty-five minutes is not really much time – part of your task as a group is to give your classmates a good sense of the material covered, without emphasizing needless detail. All group members should be actively involved in the presentation – but try not to make it a disjointed sequence of three mini-talks.

Each group will receive a single grade on the presentation (unless I have some extraordinary reason for believing that someone has not carried her/his weight). This makes it additionally important to do some rehearsal and constructive criticism of your group members.

Part of your responsibility is to attend, and listen actively to the projects of your peers!

Topics:

• Modeling the AIDS epidemic
• Splines – fitting a curve to data
• The Mathematics of the Rainbow
• Vibrations – simple and damped
• Safe and effective drug dosages
• What is the proof for Euler’s formula for the sum of the reciprocals of squares?
• The brachistochrone problem: find the path of shortest time
• Blackbody radiation