An Introduction to Cryptography: From the Caesar Cipher to the One Time Pad and Beyond – Pat Boland (Session 1 & 3) (SESSION 1 & 3 FULL)
How do we transmit private information in a secure, yet feasible way? This question has challenged humans for thousands of years and has become increasingly more important with the technological advances of the 20th and 21st centuries. This course will study a number of cryptographic techniques and the mathematics used to implement and analyze each. We will attempt to pay homage to the work of former University of Michigan undergraduate student Claude Shannon in his development of modern cryptographic theory. For example, we will ponder: What technique should we use if the “enemy” knows the system? Mathematically we will introduce and use elements of combinatorics, probability and statistics, modular arithmetic, elementary number theory (including factorization as a means to study the RSA algorithm), and the concept of random number generation. This course will be interactive with a focus on group work and scholar presentations. We will also use the University computer labs to help implement and analyze ciphers.

Art and Mathematics –  Martin Strauss (Session 2) (FULL)
With just a little historical revisionism, we can say that Art has provided inspiration for many fields within Mathematics. Conversely, Mathematics gives techniques for analyzing, appreciating, and even creating Art, as well as the basis for gallery design, digital cameras, and processing of images. In this class we will explore the Mathematics in great works of Art as well as folk art, as a way of studying and illustrating central mathematical concepts in familiar and pleasing material. And we’ll make our own art, by drawing, painting, folding origami papers, and more. Major topics include Projection, Symmetry, Wave Behavior, and Distortion. Projection includes the depiction of three-dimensional objects in two dimensions. What mathematical properties must be lost, and what can be preserved? How does an artwork evoke the feeling of three-dimensional space? We’ll study perspective, depictions of globes by maps, and the role of curvature. Turning to symmetry, we’ll study rotational and reflective symmetry that arise in tiling and other art and math. We’ll study more generalized symmetry like scaling and self-similarity that occurs in fractals as well as every self-portrait, and is central to mathematical concepts of dimension and un very different from the work at coarser scales—it is not self-similar. Describing light as waves and color as wavelength at once explains how mirrors, lenses, and prisms work and explains some uses of light and color in art. Finally, we ask about distorting fabrics and strings, and ask about the roles of cutting, gluing, and of stretching without cutting or gluing. Is a distorted human figure still recognizable, as long as it has the right number of organs and limbs, connected properly? Background in Math and interest in Art suggested. No artistic talent is necessary, though artistically talented students are encouraged to bring art supplies if they are inexpensive and easily transportable.

Graph Theory –  Doug Shaw (Sessions 1, 2, & 3) (SESSION 1, 2, & 3 FULL)
Ignore your previous knowledge of algebra, geometry, and even arithmetic! Start fresh with a simple concept: Take a collection of points, called vertices, and connect some of them with lines called edges. It doesn’t matter where you draw the vertices or how you draw the lines – all that matters is that two vertices are either related, or not. We call that a “graph” and you’ve taken the first step on the Graph Theory road! Graphs turn up in physics, biology, computer science, communications networks, linguistics, chemistry, sociology, mathematics- you name it! In this course we will discuss properties that graphs may or may not have, hunt for types of graphs that may or may not exist, learn about the silliest theorem in mathematics, and the most depressing theorem in mathematics, learn how to come up with good algorithms, model reality, and construct some mathematical proofs. We will go over fundamental results in the field, and also some results that were only proved in the last year or so! And, of course, we will present plenty of currently unsolved problems for you solve and publish when you get home!

Mathematics and Music Theory –  Lon Mitchell (Session 3) (FULL)
Mathematicians can create complex and beautiful theorems from relatively basic assumptions, while Music Theorists often try to identify basic patterns and rules in complex and beautiful music. In this course, we will explore some of the recent attempts to meet in the middle, connecting mathematical patterns and structures to music from the ancient to the modern. In Mathematics, we will explore topics such as group theory, graph theory, geometry, and metric spaces, encountering some of the most important structures in the modern discipline. Fundamental results of these areas will be discussed, and students will construct and explore examples and related patterns. In Music Theory, we will take existing music by composers such as Bach and Beethoven and use mathematical structures to provide a possible explanation of what they were thinking as they composed. In addition, we will investigate the techniques of modern composers such as Arnold Schoenberg who advocated composition based on prescribed axioms. Students will be given the chance to write music using these different techniques. Although we will use the modern (Western) twelve-tone scale as a reference, our explorations will take us into discussions of tuning, temperament, and the physics of sound. We will investigate mathematical theories of what makes the best scale, how some of those scales occur in the music of other cultures, and how modern composers have engineered exotic scales to suit their aesthetics. Software allowing students to experiment with creating their own musical systems will be provided. Prospective students should have a good command of (high-school) algebra and experience with reading music in some form.

Mathematics and the Internet –  Mark Conger (Session 2) (FULL)
How can gigabytes of information move over unreliable airwaves using unreliable signaling, and arrive perfectly intact? How can I have secure communication with a website run by a person I’ve never met? How can a large image or sound file be transferred quickly? Why is Google so good at finding what I’m looking for? How do computers work, anyway? The answers to all these questions involve applications of abstract mathematics. In Mathematics and the Internet, we’ll develop the math on its own, but also show how it is essential to making the Internet operate as it does. Our journey will take us through logic, probability, group theory, finite fields, calculus, number theory, and any other areas of math that might come up. We’ll apply our results to coding theory, cryptography, search engines, and compression. We’ll also spend several days building primitive computers out of transistors, logic gates, and lots of wire. If all goes well, we’ll connect them to the Internet!

Mathematics of Decisions, Elections and Games  –  Michael A. Jones (Session 3) (FULL)
You make decisions every day, including whether or not to sign up for this course. The decision you make under uncertainty says a lot about who you are and how you value risk. To analyze such decisions and provide a mathematical framework, utility theory will be introduced and applied to determine, among other things, a student’s preference for desserts and for the offer the banker makes to a contestant in the television show Deal or No Deal. Our analysis will touch on behavioral economics, including perspectives of 2017 Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler. Elections are instances in which more than one person’s decision is combined to arrive at a collective choice. But how are votes tallied? Naturally, the best election procedures should be used. But Kenneth Arrow was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1972, in part, because he proved that there is no best election procedure. Because there is no one best election procedure, once the electorate casts its ballots, it is useful to know what election outcomes are possible under different election procedures – and this suggests mathematical and geometric treatments to be taught in the course. Oddly, the outcome of an election often stays more about which election procedure was used, rather than the preferences of the voters! Besides politics, this phenomenon is present in other settings that we’ll consider which include: the Professional Golfers’ Association tour which determines the winner of tournaments under different scoring rules (e.g. stroke play and the modified Stableford system), the method used to determine rankings of teams in the NCAA College Football Coaches poll, and Major League Baseball MVP balloting. Anytime one person’s decisions can affect another person, that situation can be modeled by game theory. That there is still a best decision to make that takes into account that others are trying to make their best decisions is, in part, why John F. Nash was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 (see the movie A Beautiful Mind, 2002). Besides understanding and applying Nash’s results in settings as diverse as the baseball mind games between a pitcher and batter and bidding in auctions, we’ll examine how optimal play in a particular game is related to a proof that there are the same number of counting numbers {1, 2, 3, } as there are positive fractions. We will also examine the Gale-Shapley algorithm, which is used, for example, to match physicians to residency programs and to match students to colleges (the college admissions problem). Lloyd S. Shapley and Alvin E. Roth were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2012 for their work on matching.

The Geometry of Music – Alessandro Danelon (Session 1) (FULL)
Math and music are related in multiple ways. From the Western historical point of view we find connections in the math of Pythagoras, in the development of the equal temperament, and in the theoretical and artistic work of Iannis Xenakis. One can use group theory to phrase music structures, and both mathematicians and musicians claim the creative process as the moving power of their discipline. Composers used symmetries in their compositions, and scientists tried to associate sounds to their objects of study according to their inner mathematical structure. The aim of this course is to highlight some geometric and algebraic structures in the theory of music. We will start reviewing musical notions like scales, intervals, triads, harmonic progressions, tonality, modality and harmonic rhythm together with the physics of the sound (pitch and frequencies). We will then study the geometry of pitch organization and transposition and move on to explore the harmonic structure and harmonic structure of a phrase, together with the geometry of chromatic inversions. At this point we revise musical scales and intervals with geometric tools and move on to discover the geometry of harmony: Riemann’s Chromatic inversions, and Euler’s Tonnetz. On the algebraic side, we will introduce groups, their theory, and use their language in the theory of music. We will also discuss how a deeper understanding of the underlying music can help us in improving our playing and performances. Performers are encouraged to bring their instruments.