Fepruary 11, 2004 Science News 9 UNBC Mathematicians and Physicists Unite Photo by Becky Booth At UNBC Physics and Math are spooky, fun and interesting. By Carolynne Burkholder Although most UNBC students would cringe at the thought of a week filled with lectures involving math and physics, there are many who are really passionate about these subjects. The strength of the latter category of UNBC students was in the remarkable attendance for the first ever Math/Physics Symposium, which began on Monday, January. 12 and ran through until Friday, January 16th here at UNBC. Sam Walters, the Chair of the Math Department at UNBC and a presenter at the convention states that the purpose of the Symposium was “to let UNBC Students know what other students (both graduate and undergraduate) and faculty are researching on, and to encourage col- Jaboration and exchange of ideas.” ‘The Symposium featured many of UNBC’s best and brightest including many of the professors from the Math and Physics pro- grams, guests [rom Computer Science and Chemistry. There were also six students who are pursuing graduate studies at UNBC and three who are in-the last few “Cyborg” displays digital eyesight invention By Erika Meere, The McGill Daily MONTREAL (CUP} — A man claiming to be a cyborg was at McGill University on Monday to speak about the melding of man and machine.. The cyborg, also known as Steve Mann, is a University of Toronto professor, inventor, and author. He’s best known for creating EyeTap-dig- ital eyeglasses that modify light using a camera and a double-sided mirror in order to allow a tiny, built-in processor to record what you see. The EyeTap can recognize faces, fil- ter out advertisements, or send images and video directly to the Internet. An inventor since childhood, Mann came up with the earliest ver- sion of EyeTap in the 1970s, after realizing how little eyeglasses had evolved since their invention. “I remember thinking, why not have digital eyeglasses? Why are we still melting down glass?” said Mann, who wears his invention nearly all the time. In 1994, he became the first per- son to broadcast his daily life on the Internet using the EyeTap. “The idea I was trying to explore was inverse surveillance,” he said. “Shortly after, other people began doing the same _ thing, like JenniCAM, but that was for differ- ent reasons.” JenniCAM, a voyeuristic Internet site that featured a constant webcain recording of the site’s owner, closed last mouth after seven years online. Mann had soe difficulty in get- ting people to accept EyeTap’s capacity for “sousveillance,” which he defines as observation from below, rather from above. When he started working on his invention with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT3, he was asked to work from home. Some faculty members were concerned about the possibility of lawsuits being launched against MIT if images of members of the public from Mann’s eyeglasses were to appear on the Internet via MIT’s network. Casinos and department stores were especially uncomfortable with having a camera turned on them, according to Mann. “Gambling casinos didn’t4ike me too much,” he said. “I noticed a cor- relation between the number of cameras and the amount of hatred towards me. I thought, why do you hate me when I’m just doing the same thing you are?” EyeTap has evolved to become nearly indistinguishable from ordi- nary eyeglasses. There are, however, still some practical problems which Mann is trying to correct. “There are certain times when [the glasses] fog up, like this morn- ing in Toronto when it-was minus 15. One of my current projects is making contact lenses that might work better in extreme conditions.” The EyeTap glasses also have the potential to help the visually impaired and those experiencing memory loss by keeping a record of their day-to-day life, according to Mann. “We're told that technology is dis- appearing into the walls - we’ve got smart elevators, smart light switch- es...why not smart people? {Inventions like EyeTap| bring about the empowerment of the indi- vidual,” he said. However, one audience member questioned the sociological and evo- lutionary implications of humankind’s dependence on tech- nologies hke EyeTap. Mann is not worried. “This is the age-old question of whether technology is an intellectual crutch,” Mann responded. “In a sense, technology has atrophied our bodies. We think of calculators, for example. I don’t think there’s any- one in the room who could work out the square root of ovo by hand. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing, it just means that we've adapted.” Galloway Botteselle & years of their undergraduate degrees. The event also contained lectures given by special invited guests: Tim Swartz from Simon Fraser University, James Robinson from the University of Warwick, as well as Hugh Williams from the University of Calgary. The twenty six presentations dealt with a variety of topics involving Math and Physics ranging from “Equitable Handicapping in Golf” pre- sented by UNBC graduate student Claude Hurtubise to “The Navier-Strokes equations as a Dynamical System” dis- cussed by Robinson, to “Thin Liquid Film Effects on Objects Sliding on Ice” by UNBG Math professor _— Patrick Montgomery. Joe Hobart, a UNBC stu- dent pursuing his Masters Degree in Math, was one of the organisers of the event, along with Claude Hurtubise, Julian Buck, and the others involved with the UNBC Mathematics Society. Hobart and a friend dreamed up a muted version of the Symposium over coffee, when they discussed how interesting it would be to bring together all the professors and stu- dents from the Math and Physics Com (student) . Company www. THINKCGA.org Certified General Accountants Association of British Columbia Departments to discuss the research they were currently undertaking. The idea grew from there and eventually became UNBC’s first ever Math/Physics Symposium. The convention was very well attended, especially when considering the size of both the Math and Physics pro- grains at UNBC. Hobart credits the suc- cess of the event to “the concern that the professors have for their students at UNBC” and that the event was a “prod- uct of the quality of teaching available.” When questioned, Sam Walters felt that this is definitely an event that UNBC would host again, probably two years {rom now as “the symposium was well attended and many students participated, shared ideas, asked questions, and con- tributed to the inquisitive atmosphere.” The UNBC Mathematics Society would like to thank Dr. Deborah Poff (VP. Academic), Dr. Max Blouw (Dean of Research), and Dr. Bill McGill (Dean of CSAM), Dr. Ahmed Hussein (Chair of Physics), and Dr. Sam Walters (Chair of Mathematics) for their generous financial support of this event. "HINK CGA.