Department of Mathematics
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3806
(617) 552-3758
gross@bc.edu
Position:
Associate Professor of Mathematics
This web page contains my educational history, employment history, information about my books, some publications, information about courses that I’m teaching this year (2008–2009), information about Ideas in Math: The Grammar of Numbers, a course that Michael Connolly and I taught in the spring of 1998, and other useful stuff.
Education
B.A., 1979, Princeton
University.
Ph.D., 1986, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. Thesis advisor:
Joseph Silverman.
Position:
Associate Professor of Mathematics
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Teaching Assistant | 1979–1983 | Northeastern University | Instructor | 1983 |
| Boston College | Instructor | 1984–6 |
| Boston College | Assistant Professor | 1986–93 |
| Boston College | Associate Professor | 1993–present |
| Boston University | Visiting Associate Professor | 1993–4, 2000–1 |
Getting Started with Mathematica®, with C-K. Cheung, G.E. Keough, and Charles Landraitis.
Contributor to Standard Mathematical Tables and Formulæ, Thirty-first Edition, Edited by Daniel Zwillinger, CRC Press, 2003, New York.
Contributor to Standard Mathematical Tables and Formulæ, Thirtieth Edition, Edited by Daniel Zwillinger, CRC Press, 1996, New York.
“Statistical Properties of Sequences of Frobenius Classes,” with Avner Ash and Brandon Bate, Experimental Mathematics, to appear. Click here for PDF format.
“Prime Specialization in Genus 0,” with Brian Conrad and Keith Conrad, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, 360:6, June, 2008, 2867–2908. Click here for PDF format.
“Generalized Non-abelian Reciprocity Laws: A Context for Wiles’s Proof,” with Avner Ash, Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society, 32, 2000: 385–397. Click here for PDF format.
“A Generalization of a Conjecture of Hardy and Littlewood to Algebraic Number Fields,” with John H. Smith, Rocky Mountain Journal of Mathematics, 30:1, Spring, 2000: 195–215. Click here for PDF format.
“S-Integer Points on Elliptic Curves,” with Joseph Silverman, Pacific Journal of Mathematics, 167, 1995: 263–288. Click here for PDF format.
“On the Integrality of Some Galois Representations,” Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, 123:1, January, 1995: 299–301. Click here for PDF format.
“A Note on Roth’s Theorem,” Journal of Number Theory, 36:1, September, 1990: 127–132. Click here for PDF format.
“Antigenesis: A Cascade Theoretical Analysis of the Size Distribution of Antigen-Antibody Complexes: Applications of graphs in chemistry and physics,” with John Kennedy, Lou Quintas, and Martin Yarmush. Discrete Applied Mathematics 19:1–3, 1988: 177–194.
HP133.10: The Twentieth Century and the Tradition I
This two-semester course draws on literature, visual art, science,
philosophy, religion, political theory, historical events such as the
Holocaust, and developments such as the globalization of the economy
and of information technology, in order to examine how the twentieth
century has absorbed, criticized and reinterpreted the cultural
tradition it inherited. You will be challenged to understand the
interplay between the tradition and some of the significant critical
currents in the intellectual culture of our century, for example,
Marxism, psychoanalysis, comparative anthropology, structuralism and
post-structuralism, feminism, and the third-world critique of
Eurocentric culture. The aim of the course is to complete the work
begun in freshman and sophomore years, to equip you with a critical
understanding of contemporary culture that will enable you to live
thoughtfully and responsibly.
Class home page.
MT210.03: Linear Algebra
Text: Linear Algebra and its Applications,
third edition, by David C. Lay
Prerequisite: None.
This course is an introduction to the techniques of linear algebra in
Euclidean space. Topics covered include matrices, determinants,
systems of linear equations, vectors in n-dimensional space,
complex numbers, and eigenvalues. The course is required of
mathematics majors and minors, but is also suitable for students in
the social sciences, natural sciences, and management.
Class home
page.
MT805.01: Analysis II
Text: Basic Real Analysis,
by Houshang H. Sohrab
Prerequisite: MT804.
The MT804–805 sequence is intended to emphasize the basic ideas
and results of calculus and to provide an introduction to abstract
analysis.
The course begins with an axiomatic introduction to the real number
system. Metric spaces are then introduced. Theoretical aspects of
convergence and continuity are then studied in the context of a metric
space. Differentiation and integration are treated carefully as
well. The sequence concludes with an introduction to the Lebesgue integral.
Class home
page.
MT903.01: Graduate Seminar
Text: Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science,
second edition,
by Ronald L. Graham, Donald E. Knuth, and Oren Patashnik
Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor
This course is required of all candidates for the M.A. degree who are
not in the joint M.A./M.B.A. program. See the course home page for
more information about this year's topic.
In the spring of 1998, Michael Connolly (the chair of the
Department of Slavic and Eastern European Languages) and I taught
a course called: MT007/SL266 Ideas in Mathematics: The
Grammar of Numbers. It had no prerequisites, and was a
a core mathematics course for non-math and non-science majors. This
one-semester course studied the role of numbers, number names, and
number symbols in various cultures. Topics include number mysticism,
symbolism in religion and the arts, elementary number theory, number
representations, and calendars.
Texts: The Magic Numbers of Doctor Matrix, Martin Gardner.
Number Words and Number Symbols: A Cultural History of
Numbers, Karl Menninger.
Click here for more
information.