By Jon Gray
The Bullitt Lecture Series recently presented Dr. Keith Devlin, also known as National Public Radio’s “Math Guy,” who attempts to put math into terms that everyday people can understand.
Devlin, who is the executive director of the Stanford University Center for the Study of Language and Information, spoke on “Life’s Geometries” to a crowd of over 500 people in Strickler Hall auditorium.
Devlin also works with the BBC and wrote much of the text for “By the Numbers,” a PBS production.
The crowd included 150-200 students, according to Steve Seif, a mathematics professor at U of L.
The Bullitt Lecture Series is in its tenth year, with a growing popularity every year, according to Dick Davitt, a mathematics history professor at U of L.
The Bullitt family, which has been prominent in Kentucky’s history, started the series after the death of Thomas Bullitt, who left a $10,000 dollar endowment to U of L.
This came after William M. Bullitt, who collected rare math manuscripts, donated original works by Sir Isaac Newton, among other famous mathematicians, to the university.
These books can be seen in the lower level of Ekstrom Library in the rare books section.
