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Photo courtesy of the Sidney Daily News
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Bubbles and more bubbles. Bubbles inside of bubbles. People
inside of a bubble.
If you’ve ever seen one of Dr. Luther Shetler’s bubble
presentations, you know what I’m talking about. Luther taught math at Bluffton
from 1950 to 1984. Although I never had him for class, he left a definite
impression on me.
Back in the day I picked up extra jobs as a banquet server
in Marbeck. The benefits, beside the extra pay, were the leftover desserts and
sometimes being able to catch snippets of the banquet programming. One night
Luther gave his bubble presentation. I was mesmerized. It was so cool.
Luther’s legacy is living on through one of his students.
Just received an email that Darryl Nester ’88 will present Bubble Math, tomorrow afternoon as part
of the Mathematics Seminar series. In the description Darryl
writes, “We’ll discuss topics like minimal surfaces, hyperbolic paraboloids,
the isoperimetric inequality, Maraldi’s angle, catenoids, Moebius strips, … but
mostly, we’ll just blow lots of bubbles.” Just like the presentation I enjoyed
so many years ago.
Does Darryl consider Luther as a mentor? I cannot answer
that question. But it is good to see that the ‘Bubble Math’ fun lives on.
This Mathematics Seminar is set for 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014, in Centennial Hall 109.
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