The Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal: A Bibliographic Report

The content of the Humanistic Mathematics Network Newsletter was reviewed by Claire Skrivanos and Qingcheng Zhang in [1]. This report reviews the content of the Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal (1992-2004)

In a more polarized era more and more citizens are structuringtheir beliefs along ideological lines, just as politicians do

While politics in the US has long been split along the left-right, liberal-conservative spectrum, most academics have assumed that these divisions had historically not percolated through to how most Americans see themselves. In new research which draws on election data, Caitlin E. Jewitt and Paul N. Goren find that people are now more able to structure their beliefs along the left-right dimension than they were in 1980. As debates between political elites have become more polarized, many more Americans who are ideologically engaged are now thinking about issues and organizing their policy positions just as politicians do

A Gross-Zagier formula for quaternion algebras over totally real fields

We prove a higher dimensional generalization of Gross and Zagier's theorem on the factorization of differences of singular moduli. Their result is proved by giving a counting formula for the number of isomorphisms between elliptic curves with complex multiplication by two different imaginary quadratic fields $K$ and $K^\prime$, when the curves are reduced modulo a supersingular prime and its powers. Equivalently, the Gross-Zagier formula counts optimal embeddings of the ring of integers of an imaginary quadratic field into particular maximal orders in $B_{p, \infty}$, the definite quaternion algebra over \QQ ramified only at $p$ and infinity. Our work gives an analogous counting formula for the number of simultaneous embeddings of the rings of integers of primitive CM fields into superspecial orders in definite quaternion algebras over totally real fields of strict class number 1. Our results can also be viewed as a counting formula for the number of isomorphisms modulo $\frak{p} | p$ between abelian varieties with CM by different fields. Our counting formula can also be used to determine which superspecial primes appear in the factorizations of differences of values of Siegel modular functions at CM points associated to two different CM fields, and to give a bound on those supersingular primes which can appear. In the special case of Jacobians of genus 2 curves, this provides information about the factorizations of numerators of Igusa invariants, and so is also relevant to the problem of constructing genus 2 curves for use in cryptography.Comment: 32 page

The Mechanical Coupling of Fluid-Filled Granular Material Under Shear

The coupled mechanics of fluid-filled granular media controls the physics of many Earth systems, for example saturated soils, fault gouge, and landslide shear zones. It is well established that when the pore fluid pressure rises, the shear resistance of fluid-filled granular systems decreases, and, as a result, catastrophic events such as soil liquefaction, earthquakes, and accelerating landslides may be triggered. Alternatively, when the pore pressure drops, the shear resistance of these geosystems increases. Despite the great importance of the coupled mechanics of grain-fluid systems, the basic physics that controls this coupling is far from understood. Fundamental questions that must be addressed include: what are the processes that control pore fluid pressurization and depressurization in response to deformation of the granular skeleton? and how do variations of pore pressure affect the mechanical strength of the grains skeleton? To answer these questions, a formulation for the pore fluid pressure and flow has been developed from mass and momentum conservation, and is coupled with a granular dynamics algorithm that solves the grain dynamics, to form a fully coupled model. The pore fluid formulation reveals that the evolution of pore pressure obeys viscoelastic rheology in response to pore space variations. Under undrained conditions elastic-like behavior dominates and leads to a linear relationship between pore pressure and overall volumetric strain. Viscous-like behavior dominates under well-drained conditions and leads to a linear relationship between pore pressure and volumetric strain rate. Numerical simulations reveal the possibility of liquefaction under drained and initially over-compacted conditions, which were often believed to be resistant to liquefaction. Under such conditions liquefaction occurs during short compactive phases that punctuate the overall dilative trend. In addition, the previously recognized generation of elevated pore pressure under undrained compactive conditions is observed. Simulations also show that during liquefaction events stress chains are detached, the external load becomes completely supported by the pressurized pore fluid, and shear resistance vanishe