Bill Dunbar

Bill Dunbar
Bard College at Simon's Rock
84 Alford Road
Great Barrington, MA  01230

Email: wdunbar (at) simons-rock.edu
Phone: (413)-528-7225

I teach mathematics at Simon's Rock College. I come from (in reverse chronological order) Erie PA, Ann Arbor MI, Rio de Janeiro RJ (Brazil), Porto Alegre RS (Brazil), Houston TX, Boulder CO, Princeton NJ, Providence RI, Concord MA, and East Greenwich RI. I lived in Brazil only for about eight months, working as a visiting researcher. Falo portugues mais ou menos. My research interests center on the geometry and topology (no, not "topography") of three-dimensional spaces. This turns out to include such far-flung areas as crystallography and soap films and fractals and the classification of knots. I've even found it useful when teaching statistics ("you know, there's this nice picture that explains linear regression as orthogonal projection onto a plane...and then the correlation coefficient is just the cosine of...")

• At one time or another, I've taught most of the math courses in the college catalog.
• See the current course schedule for what I'm currently teaching. At the same location, you should find a link to the college catalog, with all the math courses offered within the last three or four years. We teach other subjects as well, when there is sufficient student demand.

• Check out the minimal surfaces at the University of Massachusetts.
• Here's an example of the connection between topology and crystallography .
• There's access to info on math via the Mathematical Association of America and the American Mathematical Society . The Math Forum is also worth investigating.
• In recent years, several Simon's Rock students have spent a junior semester abroad, studying math in Budapest .

• Here's some basic travel information about Brazil .
• Here you can get complete lyrics and discography of Chico Buarque, and perhaps hear a clip that will persuade you that he should be at *least* as well known in the US as Tom Jobim and Milton Nascimento and Caetano Veloso.
• Read the headlines from one of Rio's major daily newspapers, the Jornal do Brasil (in Portuguese).

• France/Italy 1981: First, a look at the Eiffel Tower from a slightly unusual angle. I took a series of cable cars to cross from Chamonix to the Valle D'Aosta, passing close to Mont Blanc. The view of the Alps was spectacular. In Tuscany, the towers of San Geminiano were also visually striking. FInally, something completely different: an indoor shot of a sculpture of two women, taken in Rome. It's a little blurry, which just might make it a more haunting image.
• Japan 1997: Here's a photo of myself and Lee Finlay, on a trip to the Japan Alps that we went on with 11 other people in the summer of 1997, organized by the Appalachian Mountain Club. Here I am, a few days later, in a hut on a mountain pass near Murodo, waiting out a typhoon. I'm drinking a $5 cup of coffee. Nancy Hartman is on my left. We also spent a couple of days in Kyoto, and one of the most impressive temples we visited was Sanjusangendo, which dates from 1266 A.D., replacing an earlier temple which was built in 1164 A.D. The hall houses 1001 statues of Kannon Bodhisattva, each with eleven faces on the head, and 40 arms (each of which saves 25 worlds). Furthermore, since it is believed that Kannon Bodhisattva can transform himself into 33 different figures, the 1001 images represent 33033 Kannons. A powerful example of the practical application of multiplication. FInally, here's a small Shinto shrine which I saw in the Asakasa district of Tokyo at the end of our trip.
• Czech Republic 2000: I went bicycling from Vienna to Prague, spending most of my time in the southern part of the Czech Republic. I saw Telc, and Vranov, and a remnant of the Iron Curtain. In Slavonice, I saw a particularly elaborate example of a "sgraffito" facade, with illustrated verses from the Bible (and text in German). I regret not having had the sense to get a closeup of a single scene as well. Prague was quite a feast for the eyes. Two of the deservedly famous landmarks are the Charles Bridge (Karluv Most) and St. Vitus's Cathedral.
• Provence 2001: I took a few day trips, but spent most of my time assisting John Hubbard with a graduate textbook he's writing (thanks to John and to Hamish Short for arranging support). I lived in Marseille within walking distance of the Vieux Port. I got only a glimpse of the Roman Theatre and Arena at Arles, during a tourist excursion. They're both still in use; bullfights are held in the Arena. [There are lots of questions that I'd like to have answers to: Why were they spared? What parts have been lost, and what parts restored? How has Arles evolved since they were built (prosperity, famine, war, plague, decay)? Were they in use in (say) 1574, and for what purpose? Imagine a movie taken from the position of the above link, at 4 frames per year, over a period of 2000 years (lasting about 5 1/2 minutes).] Anyway, on the same excursion, I also saw the ruins of the fortifications at Les Baux. Fortified high places abound in Provence, but it's hard to top this one for location. Finally, a view of the Mediterranean coast between Marseille and Cassis, which has lots of cliffs and several fjord-like bays called "calanques".
• Bremen 2015: I went to a conference at Jacobs University in August, honoring John Hubbard on his 70th birthday. We went downtown one afternoon.

"Aller Anfang ist schwer."