These were coloquia given during my tenure at AstroCamp to the other
members of the staff. They are aimed at a college level audience,
and there are a fair number of inside jokes. Good ones too.
Feel free to use them or change them.
I will never find out.
Graph Theory: What the hell?
A little known corner of mathmagic land. Easy stuff, profound results.
Cryptography: What the hell?
A quick foray into the very basic idea behind public key encryption,
followed by a short, hellish romp through modular arithmetic, number
theory, and RSA encryption.
Relativity: What the hell?
A refreshing dip into special relativity. Bit off more than should be chewed. Works well as 3 separate presentations.
Relativity: What the hell? (censored)
Same thing, but suitable for a room full of children, who have never
even imagined that the words in the other presentation exist, let alone
contemplate using them all day everyday when adults are pretending not
to hear them.
Tiny Stuff: What the hell?
Particle physics and the uncertainty principle. Don't write
letters. I know there are plenty of omissions and mistakes.
They were put there for simplicity. Particle physics is hard.
And at NYU:
Encryption Redux
A very bare-bones presentation for cSplash in 2007. Duller than
dry dishwater, but with more mathematical detail than the "Crytography:
W.T.H.?" talk. Some pages just notes for myself. In fact, don't read this.
Quantum Information Theory: What the Hell?
A delightful romp through the basic tenants and philosophies of Q.I.T. for cSplash 2009.
In the presentation I make reference to the Quantum Zeno Effect and Fourier Transforms, and near the end you'll find some rather libral use of Euler's Equation.