Clayton Shonkwiler – An Advanced Perspective

Intended Audience: Mathematicians, graduate students and ambitious high school students.

We continue our interview with Clayton Shonkwiler on applications of geometry and topology to random walks/polygons and polymer science, but now at a graduate student level. To see the earlier interview with Clayton geared at a high-school level, go to: Meet Mathematician Clayton Shonkwiler.

In this interview, Clayton explains some of his work in the paper, Probability Theory of Random Polygons from the Quaternionic Viewpoint, by Jason Cantarella, Tetsuo Deguchi, and Clayton Shonkwiler. First year graduate students and advanced high-school students can investigate some of the words talked about during this interview, including:

Stiefel Manifold
Grassman Manifold
Homogeneous Space
Random Walk
Probability Measure
Haar Measure
Polymer

Students, parents, teachers and mathematicians alike will also enjoy visiting Clayton’s website http://shonkwiler.org/, which features stunning mathematical art inspired by the beautiful mathematics that arises in his research and teaching. Some additional highlights from Clayton’s portfolio are shown below.

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