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Atlanta, GA | Posted: May 11, 2016
Summary Sentence:
Get to know Dan Margalit, a school of math professor.
Full Summary:
No summary paragraph submitted.
Dan Margalit
Dan Margalit JugglingMy research area is topology. In topology, we study properties of shapes that persist even when we stretch or bend the shapes. For example, if you have two metal rings that are linked, then they stay linked even if you bend or stretch the metal. A typical question in topology is the following: Someone hands you two rings made of metal; if you are allowed to bend and stretch the metal, can you pull the rings apart or not?
Most of my research in topology is about surfaces. The surface could be that of a ball or a donut. Surfaces are central in mathematics. They can describe the possible motions of a robot arm or all the possible solutions of a polynomial. My particular research is on the symmetries of surfaces - if we really want to understand an object, we must also understand its symmetries! Some symmetries of surfaces are easy to understand. But when we allow bending and stretching, they more challenging.
Mathematics is important because it describes the world in a beautiful and coherent way. Even the most far-fetched and abstract mathematical ideas can make their way into everyday life. For example, I was very pleased recently to attend a lecture at Georgia Tech by Jesse Johnson, a topologist who is currently working at Google. He described an application of his research on the topology of three-dimensional manifolds to the analysis of large data sets. This was shocking to me and very satisfying.
It's always the new thing that's the most exciting. Just recently my computer finished a months-long linear algebra calculation that told my collaborators and me something about an important problem in geometric group theory. We still don't completely understand what the computer is telling us, but for me that is the most exciting part - being on the cusp of discovery.
I've had some great teachers from childhood all the way on up. I remember my grandfather explaining trigonometry to me on his back patio. And I remember my dad explaining binary to me at our kitchen table. Both of them were born mathematicians, but they never got the chance.
When I was an undergraduate at Brown University, I took a class called The Fourth Dimension with Tom Banchoff. That's where I first learned about Klein bottles and Mobius strips and other surfaces. I read books by Edwin Abbott Abbott, Martin Gardner, and Ian Stewart. I spent a weekend trying to build a torus (the surface of a donut) with 14 flat triangles. At that point I was hooked.
Dan Margalit, the juggler
If you love math, you should do math. Don't be discouraged if people around you seem smarter, faster, or more knowledgeable. There is way more to math than being a genius or a prodigy. If you love what you do, you'll be successful.
I don't understand the question.
I'm kidding, but I really have no idea. I enjoy writing and teaching. I especially enjoy finding the right way to explain a particular topic to a particular group of people. I could possibly get that kind of satisfaction from teaching high school or writing popular mathematical or scientific nonfiction.
The science! The sheer volume of exciting scientific research that comes out of Georgia Tech is astounding.
They work very hard. And they take responsibility for their successes and failures. I don't know how many times I was expecting a student to complain to me that my test question was too hard, only to have them tell me it was a completely fair question and they should have gotten it.
I used to be a very avid juggler, doing stage performances and street performances. I once juggled 7 balls for something like 10 seconds. It was glorious - even though nobody else saw it!
I love hanging out with my family. I love being in the mountains. I love singing and playing music. I try to do something for myself every day.
I'm not a big traveler. When I lived in Utah, I developed a love for the great outdoors. Places like Alaska, New Zealand, and Patagonia - dramatic landscapes at the corners of the globe - are appealing to me.
I like my life, so I wouldn't make a lot of changes. I have various fantasies for popularizing math and improving math education, so I'd start thinking about ways to act on those.
