Singing Along With Math
Professor T. Christine Stevens
American Mathematical Society
The opera singer Jerome Hines, who died in 2003, sang at the New York Metropolitan Opera for over forty years. He was also a math major who retained a lifelong interest in mathematics. In the 1950’s he published several papers that were based on work that he had done as a student. I’ll focus on the first of these papers, which describes a new method for finding the roots of an equation. I’ll also discuss Hines’ mathematical background and why he kept working on mathematics, even after he became a successful opera singer.
Professor Chris Stevens leads the Division of Meetings and Professional Services at the American Mathematical Society (AMS) here in Providence. Before joining the AMS in 2014, she was a professor of mathematics and computer science at Saint Louis University. Her research interests include topological groups and the history of mathematics, and she is a big opera fan.
