Author Archives: Bradley Froehle

Wells Fargo Compaints – Part 3/2

I got my monthly account statement from WellsFargo today. It wonderfully included a $12 monthly account fee, because I had failed to meet the minimum balance requirements for the month. Who cares that this failure was actually their fault (see the previous story? I need a bank that isn’t so large and impersonal. This really bugs me.

Free RedBox DVD Rental

Free 1-night RedBox DVD Rental, use promotional code FROEHL.

Caveats:

  • Minneapolis/St. Paul, Houston and Salt Lake City metro area Redbox locations.
  • Limit one (1) free DVD rental per new Redbox customer credit/debit card.
  • The promotion runs from 8/21 through 9/17 so get cracking.

See RedBox for a list of locations and DVDs.

Notre Dame Math REU

I just began working at Notre Dame’s Summer Math REU. For the uninitiated, the Research Experiences for Undergraduates program is funded by the National Science Foundation to pay for students to work at participating universities working on research in the sciences.

There are 8 students participating in the ND Math REU this year. Together, we are working on 4 separate math problems—2 students per problem. My partner and I are investigating Totally Positive (resp. Totally Nonnegative) Matrices, namely matrices whose minors are all positive (resp. nonnegative). (Note here that by minor, I really mean the determinant of any square submatrix). (See MathWorld for a description of a Totally Positive Matrix).

At the moment, we are looking at what inequalities between minors hold true for every totally positive matrix. This theory has been worked out for principle minors for up to 5×5 matrices, and generalized to some extent over non-principle minors. While there is a lot of work in this field, at present we are examining if there is a sort of ‘extremal’ or primitive set of inequalities that generate every other valid inequality.

Hopefully I’ll be able to write a more concrete description of what we are trying to accomplish at a later date.

Also, I must mention that the campus is beautiful in the summer (well, they are doing some construction, including regilding the golden dome). I’ll try to take some action shots of the REU students and the pretty campus tomorrow.

Update: Photos

Europe!

I just got back (well, a week ago now) from a two week trip through Europe. The trip was actually a May Session Global Seminar offered through the University of Minnesota. The course was entitled “Mysteries of the Universe in the 21st Century.” Each link below goes to a gallery of pictures I took on the trip. All of the photos from the trip are on Flickr for your browsing pleasure.

To begin, we flew from Minneapolis to Detroit to Rome, and then spent 3 days in Rome sightseeing. After Rome, we stopped off in nearby Tivoli to tour Villa d’Este and Villa Adriana.

The next stop was the remote Assergi (l’Aquila) near Gran Sasso. Here we had some lectures given by researchers working in the nearby Gran Sasso Laboratory. Due to some political reasons and safety concerns, we were not allowed to tour the Gran Sasso Laboratory (which is located deep within the heart of the mountain, connected to one of the tunnels thru the mountain).

Leaving Gran Sasso, we took a bus to Florence for some more sightseeing. There was a little bit of class work when we toured the European Gravitational Observatory about an hour outside of town. The EGO is looking for gravity waves using a very large interferometer. Neat stuff, really.

After spending a few nights in Florence, we stopped for the afternoon in Pisa before continuing on to Torino. Torino was just a quick layover until we left promptly the next morning for the Laboratory in the Frejus Tunnel (you know, the one that’s closed now because of the fire that killed 2 people).

Next stop was the beautiful Geneva, Switzerland, where we stayed 4 nights to tour the nearby CERN research facilities. After the 4th night in Geneva, we drove to Montreaux located on the other side of Lake Geneva to tour an old castle, Chateau de Chillon.

We then took the TGV from Geneva to Paris, a trip which lasted about 3.5 hours. After spending 3 nights in Paris (so 2 full days of sightseeing), the trip ended and we flew home.

I’ll try to write more about my experiences when I get the chance.