Homer S. White

Department of Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science,

Campus Box 311 Georgetown College Georgetown KY, 40324.

Phone: 502-863-8307.

Email: hwhite0@georgetowncollege.edu.

An Uneventful Biography

I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, March 14, 1963. In college I studied philosophy but later switched to mathematics, completing the doctorate in 1991. I took several semesters off along the way, working in soup kitchens and shelters and living in Catholic Worker Houses. I am married with three children and two cats.

A Brief Guide to Homer (In Case You Have to Talk to Him)

I'm interested in a great many things, but all of them stem from one or both of the following two questions -- the only questions I've ever really asked.

1. How does the world work, at its most fundamental level?  Many mathematicians, and most analytic philosophers, work on this one.  Sorry, no final answers to report here.
2. How can we find God,
   • in immediate, concrete individual experience?
   • and in community?

For more on Question One, which first engaged my attention and which led me to my current profession, see further down.  Since my early twenties, however, my focus has shifted gradually toward Question Two.  Work on the latter question, in both of its parts, is ongoing. In fact, if we take seriously the thought of the great Cappadocian Church Father Gregory of Nyssa on epektasis, no final answers are forthcoming here, either.

Interests and/or Commitments, In No Particular Order, Stemming From Question Two

• The Roman Catholic Church.  My family's parish:  the Newman Center at the University of Kentucky.
• The great Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton, whose monastery Gethsemani is an hour's drive west of the college.  An interest in Merton entails an interest in just about anything that interested him, including:
  • peace and justice concerns, especially as expressed in the Catholic Worker Movement;
  • the Church Fathers;
  • monastic spirituality and the contemplative prayer tradition;
  • interreligious dialogue.
• Buddhism.  I am a student at the Furnace Mountain Zen Retreat Center, about an hour's drive east of the College.
• Ashtanga Yoga.  Sometimes I teach it as a PE class at the College.
• Classical Indian philosophy, and to some extent contemporary Indian thought, e.g., that of Aurobindo Ghose.
• My wife, and subsequently our three children.

Finally, the obligatory list of professioanal accomplishments.

Academic and Employment History

• Charles E. Jordan Sr. High School, Durham NC (1978-1980). No degree received.
• Princeton University (1980-1984). Received B.A. in Philosophy.
• University of California at Berkeley (1984-85). Studied philosophy, no degree received.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1985-1991). Received M.S. in Mathematics, 1989; Ph.D. in Mathematics, 1991.
• Pikeville College, 1991-1996. Assistant Professor of Mathematics.
• Georgetown College, 1996-2000. Assistant Professor of Mathematics.
• Georgetown College, 2000-2002. Associate Professor of Mathematics.
• Cornell University (sabbatical leave from Georgetown), 2002-2003. Visiting Associate Professor and Teaching Fellow, Department of Mathematics. Taught liberal arts mathematics and elementary statistics; engaged in research in history of mathematics.
• Georgetown College, 2003-2007. Associate Professor of Mathematics.
• Georgetown College, 2007-present. Professor of Mathematics.

I am also the Director of the Academic Honors Program at Georgetown College.

Honors and Awards

• Princeton University: Phi Beta Kappa; Highest Honors in Philosophy; McCosh Prize for Best Senior Thesis in Philosophy; Beinecke Memorial Scholarship.
• University of North Carolina: nominated for Linker Award (best graduate teaching assistant).
• Pikeville College: Pew Short-Term Research Fellowship, summer 1992; Pew Long-Term Research Fellowship, 1993-1994. Fellowship year was spent at the Department of Statistics at the University, where I continued research in ergodic theory and took graduate courses in statistics.

Teaching Interests

• Mathematics: I have taught most courses in the standard undergraduate curriculum. Special areas of interest include probability and statistics, especially as applied to actuarial science; also geometry and the history of mathematics.
• Philosophy: I have eighteen graduate hours in philosophy. As needed, and as time permits, I have taught in the Philosophy Department; areas of competence include logic and classical Indian philosophy (both Hindu and Buddhist). I also designed and co-taught the inaugural Interdisciplinary Seminar of the Honors Program at Georgetown, on the philosophical and theological ramifications of cosmic evolution and evolutionary biology.

Research

Ph.D. work focused on ergodic theory and dynamical systems, with special emphasis on the applications of Kolmogorov complexity to these areas. More recently, I have worked in the history of mathematics, especially with a view to pedagogical applications. I have special interests in Leonhard Euler and in the mathematics of classical India, and non-Western mathematics generally. Current projects: editing the Ishtankapancavimshatika of Tejasimha, a Sanskrit manuscript on recreational mathematics in a religious (Jaina) setting; study of the concept of upapatti (proof) in classical Indian in mathematics, especially in the Kerala School.

Languages (in order of decreasing competence)

• Sanskrit
• Latin
• Greek
• French
• German

Professional Memberships

• The Mathematical Association of America
• The Euler Society
• The Casualty Actuarial Society (Academic Correspondent)
• The Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics

Publications

• (Dissertation) On the Algorithmic Complexity of Trajectories of Points in Dynamical Systems, University Microfilms, 1991.
• (with I. Assani and K. Petersen) "Some connections between ergodic theory and harmonic analysis," in Almost Everywhere Convergence II, edited by A. Bellow and R.L. Jones; Academic Press, 1991.
• "Algorithmic complexity of points in dynamical systems," Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems (1993), 13, pp. 807-830.
• "Conditional algorithmic complexity and restricted exponential instability in dynamical systems," Technical Report Series, University of Kentucky Department of Statistics, 1995.
• (with R. Batterman, Ohio State University) "Chaos and algorithmic complexity," Foundations of Physics, 26, no. 3, March 1996.
• "Leonhard Euler on Cevian Geometry" (with Eisso Aczema of University of Maine), in The History of Mathematics in Pedagogy (MAA Notes Series), 2005.
• “A Survey of the Geometry of Leonhard Euler”, in the Euler Tercentenary Volume 1707-2007, Elsevier Press, 2007.
• “Classroom Capsules, Courtesy Leonhard Euler”, to appear in Mathematical Time Capsules (MAA Notes Series).

Translations (published online in the Euler Archives, look up using the E number)

• De Centro Similitudinis (Euler E.693)
• Geometria et Sphaerica Quaedam (Euler E.749)

Presentations (Contributed)

• "Theistic Considerations in the Foundations of Mathematics," at the conference on Christian Scholarship: Knowledge, Reality and Method, Boulder, Colorado, October 1997.Discusses.
• "Impossibility and Time." Kentucky MAA annual meeting, April 2000.
• "Progressively Finite Games," North Carolina Governor's School, July 2000.
• "Godel's theorem via Kolmogorov complexity," MAA Special Session on Great Theorems of Mathematics, Joint Mathematics Meetings, New Orleans, January 2001.
• "Euler on Cevians", Joint Mathematics Meetings, Special Session on Mathematics in the Second Millennium; San Diego, January 2002.
• "Checkerboard Problems and Boundedness Theorems in Differential Equations", MAA Summer Meeting, Special Session on Recreational Mathematics in the Classroom; Burlington Vermont, August 2002.
• "Euler and the Center of Similitude", 2K+2 Meeting of the Euler Society; Rumford, Maine, August 2002.
• "The Ishtankapancavimshatika: A Jaina Text on Recreational Mathematics", Kentucky MAA Annual Meeting, Murray State University, April 2004.
• "Leonhard Euler, Hopeful Trisector": Trisectional MAA Meeting, Evansville, Indiana, November 2004.
• "Philosophy of Mathematics in Classical India: An Overview": MAA Special Session on Philosophy of Mathematics, Joint Mathematics Meetings, Atlanta, Georgia, January 2005.
• “Power Series Approximations in 15th Century Kerala”, Notre Dame University, March 2005.
• “Honors Projects in the History of Mathematics: Use of Primary Sources, in the Original or in Translation”, MAA Special Session on History of Mathematics in Teaching, Joint Mathematics Meetings, New Orleans, January 2007.
• “Use of Primary Sources in an Honors Liberal Arts History of Mathematics Class”, MAA Special Session on Asian Mathematics, Joint Mathematics Meetings, San Diego, January 2008.
• ``Four Models of Interdisciplinarity'', Honors Best Practices Panel Session, Southern Regional Honors Council Annual Meeting, Birmingham, Alabama, March 2008.

Presentations (Invited)

• "More Veterum Geometrarum: Some results of Euler and Fuchs Having Roots in Classical Times", Pohl Colloquium Address, November 2002, Adelphi University, Garden City, New York.
• “Ideas of Mathematical Proof in Classical India”, Joint AMS-MAA Session on the History of Mathematics, Joint Mathematics Meetings, New Orleans, January 2007.
• “The Kerala School: Further Developments”, MAA PREP Workshop on the Mathematics of Asia’s Past, Washington DC, June 2007.