George Jennings

Professor
Department of Mathematics

Office:   NSM A122
Office hours: MW 11:30am-12:30pm, 6-7pm
Phone:   (310)243-3592
Email:  gjennings@csudh.edu
Website:  http://www.csudh.edu/math/gjennings/

Updated Sat Feb 11 17:24:10 PST 2012

Spring 2012 Classes

MAT 153 sec. 03 Precalculus

• Days, times and rooms:
  • Mondays and Wednesdays 10-11:10am in WH A139.
  • Fridays 10-11:10am in WH F144
• Official text (recommended): Precalculus: a Prelude to Calculus by Sheldon Axler. Wiley, 2009.
• Alternate text, free and downloadable, for students who prefer a free alternative to the official text: Precalculus, by Carl Stitz and Jeff Zeager. Download from http://www.stitz-zeager.com/Precalculus/Stitz_Zeager_Open_Source_Precalculus.html
• Syllabus
• Calendar
• WeBWorK

MAT 191 sec. 04 Calculus I

• Days, times and rooms:
  • Mondays and Wednesdays 4-5:25pm in NSM C213.
  • Fridays 4-5:25pm in WH F144
• Official text (recommended): Essential Calculus by James Stewart. Cengage Learning, 2007.
• Alternate texts, free and downloadable, for students who prefer a free alternative to the official text:
  • Biology students will like this text: Calculus for the Life Sciences: a Modeling Approach, by James Cornette and Ralph Ackerman. Download from http://cornette.public.iastate.edu/CLS.html
  • A free traditional calculus text: Calculus by David Guichard. (Some people call this text "Whitman Calculus" in honor of Whitman College, where the author teaches.) Download from http://www.whitman.edu/mathematics/calculus/
• Syllabus
• Calendar
• WeBWorK

MAT 347 sec. 01 Modern Geometry

• Days, times, and rooms: Mondays and Wednesday 7-8:15pm in SBS B231
• Text: Modern Geometry with Applications by George Jennings. Springer-Verlag, 1994.
• Syllabus
• Calendar

Archive of courses from previous semesters

• Old exams

American Institute of Mathematics Open Textbook Initiative

• Reviews of free textbooks

Links to Math Software

Open Source software (free)

• Sage A free computer algebra system, with many of the capabilities of Mathematica, MATLAB, and Maple. Combines many mathematical programs (Maxima, GAP, Pari, Octave, etc.) in one package with a common interface. (Prof. Pong's favorite).
• Sage at CSUDH Link to a Sage server on our campus. Requires a password.
• GeoGebra a free, downloadable, dynamic geometry software package that is very useful for graphing. Available at http://www.geogebra.org/cms/
• Octave Free software similar to MATLAB.
• FreeMat Another free software similar to MATLAB, recommended by Prof. Stanoyevitch. It runs on Macintosh, Windows, and Linux.
• Scilab Yet another free software similar to MATLAB. Includes Scicos toolbox similar to Matlab's Simulink. Maintained in France, but English documentation is available.

Commercial Software running in Welch Hall Student Labs

The student versions of these packages have all the power of the professional versions, but at an affordable price. Our campus has site licenses for these systems so you can run them in the Welch Hall computer labs for free.

• Mathematica. A comprehensive, professional system for doing mathematics on a computer with excellent documentation, graphics, more. (My personal favorite.) Students have unlimited access to Mathematica in the Welch Hall labs. Faculty may obtain free copies to use at home; click Mathematica for faculty for more information.
• Wolfram Alpha, a free website for solving math problems and accessing scientific information hosted by the company that sells Mathematica.
• MATLAB A comprehensive, professional system for doing mathematics on a computer, with an emphasis on matrices. (Prof. Stanoyevitch's favorite.)

Links to Information about Careers in Math

• Math Classifieds MAA math careers website
• Career info for Math Majors AMS site with info about grad school, summer internships, jobs, etc.

Links to Interesting and Beautiful Things

• http://xahlee.org/ Art site with many beautiful mathematical illustrations.
• http://curvebank.calstatela.edu/home/home.htm National Curve Bank at Cal State LA.
• http://www.maa.org/ Mathematical Association of America.
• http://www.ams.org/ American Mathematical Society.

Miscellaneous

• How to Succeed and How to Fail in Mathematics
• Modern Geometry with Applications: Corrections Errata and corrections for my geometry book.

LSAMP Workshops

The Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program offers free workshops to supplement selected science and math classes at CSUDH. The workshops are voluntary and are open to ALL science and math students. The program pays for the workshops and pays stipends to students who attend the workshops if they meet certain other conditions.

Workshops generally meet 4 hours per week and are led by a advanced student facilitators. Students work cooperatively in the workshops on challenging material that enhances their performance in class. Experience shows that students who regularly attend workshops score from one- half to one full grade point higher in class than their peers who do not attend workshops. The friendships and contacts with other workshop students that workshop participants develop through their participation help them excel throughout their college years.

Dr. H. K. Choi, Assistant Professor of Biology at CSUDH, is in charge of the LSAMP workshop program. Please contact him for information about the workshops. Dr. Choi's phone number is (310)243-3985. His email address is hchoi@csudh.edu

Dr. Jennings' mathematical interests

I was trained in differential geometry, a field that combines geometry with calculus to study shapes in multidimensional spaces, and algebraic geometry, a field that uses abstract algebra to study shapes in multidimensional spaces. Lately my interests are turning toward applied mathematics, a very broad area which focuses on using mathematics to solve "real-world" problems using any mathematical tools that shed light on the problem.

I have taught mathematics at Cal State University Dominguez Hills since fall 1987.

Publications

1. "Does the Jordan Form of a Matrix have the Maximum Number of Zeros?" (with F. Brulois and S. Raianu), Bull. Math.Soc. Sc. Math. Roumanie Tome 48(96) No. 4, 2005.
2. "Projections, geometric", "Similarity", and "Relativity". Articles in the Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education, edited by L. Grinstein and S. Lipsey. RoutledgeFalmer, NY, 2001.
3. Modern Geometry with Applications. Springer-Verlag, New York, 1994. Errata and corrections.
4. (with Judy Arms and Mark Gotay) "Geometric and algebraic reduction for singular momentum maps". Advances in Mathematics, Vol. 79, No. 1 (1990), pp. 43-103.
5. "Tangential Chow forms - hypersurfaces of rank one in a Grassmannian". Geometriae Dedicata 28 (1988), pp. 1-6.
6. "Lines having contact four with a projective hypersurface". Pacific Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 129, no. 2 (1987), pp. 321-335.
7. "Lines having high contact with a projective variety". Pacific Journal of Mathematics, Vol 125, no. 1 (1986), pp. 103-115.
8. Algebro-geometric invariants arising from the local differential geometry of projective varieties. Thesis, UCLA. 1984.

Dr. Jennings' Personal Background

Education:

Ph.D. in Mathematics, 1984, University of California, Los Angeles
Thesis Title "Algebro- Geometric Invariants Arising from the Local Differential Geometry of Projective Varieties."
Thesis advisor: Professor Mark Green
B.A. in Mathematics, 1975, University of California, Berkeley

Interests and Family:

My mathematical interests include algebraic and differential geometry, applied mathematics, and physics. My hobbies include, hiking, gardening, fixing old cars, electronics, and reading. Also I'm trying to learn how to play the piano.

I am married to Dr. Linda Cohen Jennings, professor of economics at UC Irvine. We have two fine sons, Andy and Rob.