Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM 

Monday, October 19, 1998 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium 

Ivars Peterson

ABSTRACT --  From amazing coincidences and dice games to slot machines and Tilt-A-Whirls, randomness and chance pervade everyday life.  Sorting through the various meanings of randomness and distinguishing between what we can and cannot know proves to be no simple matter.    

SPEAKER:  Ivars Peterson is a writer at Science News, covering mathematics and computers.  He also serves as editor of Science News Online (http://www.sciencenews.org) (a non-NASA link) and writes the weekly online column "MathTrek".  Ivars graduated from the University of Toronto (majoring in physics and chemistry) and was a high school science and mathematics teacher for eight years in Ontario.  He obtained his masters degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in Columbia and started working at Science News in 1981.  His books include The Mathematical Tourist, Islands of Truth, Newton's Clock, The Jungles of Randomness, and Fatal Defect: Chasing Killer Computer Bugs.    In 1991, Ivars Peterson received the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award in recognition of "exceptional ability and sustained effort in communicating mathematics to a general audience".