GRCC In the News, 1-16-19

Speaker Announced for 2019 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Week

Jan. 15, 2019; businesswire.com

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Davenport University, Grand Rapids Community College and Grand Valley State University will host the 33rd Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Commemorative Celebration featuring renowned speaker, Dr. David Stovall. Dr. Stovall is a professor of African-American Studies and Criminology, Law & Justice at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Grand Valley State closes all campuses due to inclement weather

Jan. 15, 2019; MLive

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – All Grand Valley State University campuses closed at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 15 because of inclement weather, officials announced.

… Grand Rapids Community College canceled all evening classes and activities, Aquinas College canceled all classes that begin after 4 p.m., and Grand Rapids Public Schools canceled all evening activities. Davenport University’s Holland campus was closed Tuesday.

Raider Salute to Willie Hurst

A Raider Salute from the Tassell M-TEC team:

A Raider Salute to Willie Hurst from Facilities for going above and beyond to make sure our parking lot was for safe for our students and community guests Tuesday. So appreciated and no falls!!!

De Montmort’s Matching Problem subject of Mathematics Seminar

The Grand Rapids Community College Mathematics Department is pleased to announce that it will host its first Mathematics Seminar of 2019 on Wednesday, January 23, 3-4 PM in 101 Cook.

Our speaker is GRCC student Branden Wilson.  For the title and abstract of his talk, please see below.

The basic idea behind De Montmort’s Matching Problem:  A number of people attend a party.   Each wears his/her own (different) hat, which is tossed into a dark room.  As people leave the party, they fumble around in the dark, each person taking a randomly chosen hat.   A match occurs when someone is fortunate enough to grab their own hat.  Branden will discuss the probabilities associated with such events.  Participants at this seminar get to play cards and will be rewarded with a surprising appearance of one of the most famous numbers in mathematics.  All are welcome!

Refreshments will be served at 2:45 PM.

De Montmort’s Matching Problem

Probability theory originated in the analysis of games of chance, beginning with the correspondence of Pascal and Fermat on dividing stakes in games of dice (1654-1660), and continuing with the first book on probability, Huygens’s ‘On Reasoning in Games of Chance’ (1657).   Pierre Raymond de Montmort extended this work in his 1708 ‘Essay on the Analysis of Games of Chance,’ in which he considered probabilities in popular games of cards and dice.  Among the card games he analyzed was Treize (or Recontre).  It is for this analysis that de Montmort’s matching problem is named.  After a few rounds of Treize, I will present a solution to the problem using the inclusion-exclusion principle developed by Nikolas Bernoulli.