Eric Rowland
erowland
Office: Gibson Hall 421
I am a postdoctoral researcher in the mathematics department at Tulane. I am broadly interested in discrete structures, with particular affinities for number theory, combinatorics, dynamical systems, and the interplay between them.
I make extensive use of the experimental approach and Mathematica. I believe that understanding mathematical structure is intrinsically related to computability. Futher, the main purpose for producing a hierarchy of theorems is to use it to build a hierarchy of programs that make mathematics effective and computable.
A few years ago I showed that the recurrence a(n) = a(n – 1) + gcd(n, a(n – 1)) generates primes.
Last semester (spring 2010) I taught Calculus II. Next semester (fall 2010) I will teach Experimental Mathematics.
Here is some of my work:
I have strong feelings about the way people naturally learn, and what this means for how we should teach. The following lament articulates many of these much better than I have been able to, and I highly recommend it. It's primarily addressed to K–12 education but applies verbatim to undergraduate and graduate education. Keith Devlin gives a brief introduction.
A Mathematician's Lament by Paul Lockhart (2002)