Dr. Swain Presents at Association for Christians in the Mathematical Sciences

Dr. Gordon Swain, Professor of Mathematics, attended the Biennial Conference of the Association for Christians in the Mathematical Sciences, May 29-June 1, at Bethel University, St. Paul, Minnesota. He gave a talk titled, "Calculus methods from the early 1600s." In this talk he showed some of the creative mathematics involved in solving calculus problems (like finding the area between curves) that was used before the discovery of Calculus (late 1600s). About the conference he said, "While mathematics is neither Christian nor non-Christian, when mathematicians who are Christians get together there is an extra element of wonder at God's creation. Plus it is very cool to be able to talk about mathematical problems and your Bible study in the same conversation; typically we have to separate these parts of our lives. One speaker at the conference spoke about grace in teaching, another talked about the ethics of autonomous robots (robotic weapons and robotic caregivers); this last topic was very scary."