Greg Buck curriculum vitae

 

 

Gregory R. Buck

Curriculum Vitae

 

Contact:

 

Department of Mathematics, Box 1641, Saint Anselm College

100 Saint Anselm Drive, Manchester, New Hampshire 03102-1310

Telephone: 603-641-7002  e-mail: gbuck@anselm.edu

 

Citizenship: U.S.A.

 

Education:  Ph.D. (Mathematics) Boston University 1988; advisor: G. R. Hall

 

Fields of Study:  Applied Mathematics, Dynamical Systems, Topology, Scientific Computation

 

Professional History:

 

1998- Present: Chair, Department of Mathematics, Saint Anselm College

1998- Present: Professor, Saint Anselm College

1994 - 1998: Associate Professor, Saint Anselm College

1991 - 1994: Assistant Professor, Saint Anselm College

1988 - 1991: Assistant Professor, Tufts University

 

 

Publications:

 

Recent preprints:

 

Detangling of DNA by type-2 topoisomerases, (G. Buck and E. Lynn Zechiedrich), submitted 2002

 

The dimension of DNA, preprint 2002

 

Weaving and cabling, the patterns of knotting and linking, preprint 2002

 

A dynamic theory of entanglement, preprint 2002

 

Accessibility, occlusion, and radiation of filaments, G. Buck, J. Simon, R. Scharein, R. Schnick, submitted 2002

 

Total curvature and packing of knots, G. Buck and J. Simon, preprint 2002

 

Evolution as a gradient-like flow on the adaptive landscape, preprint, 2002

 

The dynamics of attractive filaments, preprint, 2002

 

The spectrum of natural knotting and linking: classifying the topology arising in filament models in biology and physics, G. Buck, preprint 2002

 

Finite volume entanglement, G. Buck, R. Scharein, preprint 2002

 

Differential equation models of competing standards, preprint 2002

 

 

 

Appeared:

 

Algorithms of boundless beauty, Science, 20 April 2001; 292: 445-446 (book review)

 

Why not knot right?, Nature, 27 January 2000 (book review)

 

Thickness and crossing number of knots  (G. Buck and J. Simon), Topology and its Applications 91 (1999) 245-257

 

Most smooth closed space curves contain an approximate solution to the N-body problem, 

Nature 395 (3 September 1998), 51-53  (Cover article)

 

Four-thirds power law for knots and links, Nature 392 (19 March 1998), 238-239

 

Energy and length of knots, (G. Buck and J. Simon), Lectures at Knots 96, S. Suzuki, ed. World Scientific 1997, pp 219-235, lectures delivered to the International Conference on Knot Theory, Tokyo, 1996

 

A simple energy function for knots, (G. Buck and J. Orloff), Topology and its Applications 61 (1995), 205-214

 

Random knots and energy, Journal of Knot Theory and its Ramifications, Vol.3 No. 3, (1994) 355-363, reprinted in Random Knotting and Linking, K.C. Millett and D.W. Sumners eds, World Scientific, 1994

 

Knots as dynamical systems, (G. Buck and J. Simon), Topology and its Applications 51 (1993) 229-246

 

Computing canonical conformations for knots, (G. Buck and J. Orloff), Topology and its Applications 51 (1993) 247-253

 

Mass distributions in collinear central configurations, Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy Vol. 51, 1991, pp 305 ­ 317ont>

 

On clustering in central configurations, Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, Vol. 108,#3,1990, pp 801- 810

 

Mass distributions in central configurations, Ph.D. thesis, Glen Richard Hall, advisor, Boston University, 1988

 

 

General Interest:

 

Why knot?  Odyssey (young adult science magazine), cover story, October 1997.

 

Physical knot theory, (G Buck, J. Simon and R. Scharein), accepted, Scientific American

 

Articles discussing BuckÕs research have appeared in Nature (Orbits of all sorts, by Donald Saari, 3 September 1998), The New York Times (Science squints at a future fogged by chaotic uncertainty, by Malcolm W. Browne, 22 September 1998), Science News (Following gravity's loops and knots, by Ivars Peterson, 5 September 1998), The Boston Globe (Conferees tie one on, by David Arnold, 3 August 1997  -- included a photograph of Buck on the front page of Sunday Globe)

 

 

Software Development

 

CCFinder, a program for locating the collinear central configurations of n

arbitrary masses

 

MinimumKnot, with J. Orloff, a program for finding canonical conformations of arbitrary knots by following gradient flow on energy surfaces

 

RandomKnot, a program for generating random piecewise linear and smooth (harmonic) knots

 

Energy functions and visualization techniques due to Buck were implemented with Buck's assistance into two leading knot visualization and manipulation programs: KnotPlot, by Robert Scharein, and Evolver, by Kenneth Brakke.

.

 

Grants:

 

Principal Investigator, Three year (2001-2004) research grant from the National Science Foundation, Program in Computational Mathematics.   Title of project: Physical Knots.

 

Principal Investigator, Three year (1997-2000) research grant from the National Science Foundation, Program in Computational Mathematics.   Title of project: Physical Knot Theory.

 

Principal Investigator: Three year (1994-1997) research grant from the National Science Foundation, Program in Computational Mathematics.  Title of project: Energy Functions for Knots.

 

Co-Principal Investigator:  (1993) National Science Foundation grant to establish a new Mathematics Laboratory at Saint Anselm College.

 

Principal Investigator: (1993) Saint Anselm College Summer Research Grant.  Title of research proposal: Physical Knot Theory.

 

Principal Investigator:  The Knot Project (with J. Simon, U. Iowa, R. Scharein, U. British Columbia), an extensive research/education project encompassing knotting and tangling phenomena in many scientific fields.

 

 

Award:

 

Teacher of the Year, Saint Anselm College 1998-1999

 

 

Invited Talks, Workshops, 2000 ­ 200ont><

 

Complexity in Biotechnology and Agriculture, Mountain Sky Ranch, Bozeman, Montana, Oct 2002

 

Squishy Physics Seminar, Department of Physics, Harvard University, Sept 2002

 

Max-Planck-Institut fur Physik Komplexer Systeme, Dresden, International Workshop and Seminar on Topology in Condensed Matter Physics, June 2002

 

Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Program, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Summer 2001

 

CIME Summer School on Topological Fluid Mechanics, Cetraro, Italy, June, 2001

 

University of Nevada, Las Vegas, American Mathematical Society Meeting, Special Session on Physical Knotting, April 2001

 

Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, Geometry and Topology of Fluid Flows, October 2000

 

Tufts University Department of Mathematics Seminar, March 2000

 

Selected Invited Talks, pre 2000:

 

Williams College Department of Mathematics Seminar, March 1999

 

University of New Hampshire Department of Physics Seminar, Jan 1999

 

Cornell University Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Seminar, Dec1998

 

International Conference on Knot Theory, Delphi, Greece. August 1998

 

Association for Science and Technology Centers annual conference, Edmonton, Canada, October 1998.

 

Boston University Field Day for high school students, May 1999

 

United States Congress: (with J. Simon), by the National Council for Science Funding, the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics and the National Science Foundation, to present our work in an exhibition of NSF funded projects for members of Congress and their staffs.  April 1997

 

Workshop on Algorithmic Methods in Low Dimensional Topology, Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, University of California, Berkeley, March 1997

 

Special Session on Physical Knot Theory, and companion Workshop on Computer Methods, at the Meeting of the American Mathematical Society, University of Iowa, March 1996 (co-organizer)

 

National Science Foundation Knot Workshop at The National Science and Technology Center for Computation and Visualization of Geometric Structures (The Geometry Center), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, March 1993

 

The National Science Foundation Regional Institute in Dynamics, Boston, July 1992

 

Conference on Computer Graphics in Pure Mathematics, May 1990, University of Iowa, Iowa City

 

Midwest Dynamical Systems Conference, November 1989, Northwestern University

 

Meetings organized:

 

Special Session on Physical Knot Theory, and companion Workshop on Computer Methods, at the Meeting of the American Mathematical Society, University of Iowa, March 1996 (co-organizer)

 

General interest conference on knots at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, in conjunction with the International Guild of Knot-Tyers.  An article about the conference, discussing Buckšs research work (with a photo of Buck), appeared on the front page of the Boston Sunday Globe, August 8, 1997. (co-organizer)

 

Classroom presentations on knots or dynamics for students at many levels, including preschool, elementary, middle and high schools.

 

Curriculum Development

                        

The Nature of Mathematics. At Saint Anselm College: proposed, devised and led a new course aimed at strong liberal arts students, entitled The Nature of Mathematics. Topics may include, but are not limited to: manifolds, topology and knot theory, sizes of  infinities, variation, symmetry, numbers and notation, mathematics and calculating machines, dimension, fractals, coordinate systems, and dynamical systems and chaos. (The course was offered for the eighth time in spring of 2002).

 

Chaos, An Introduction to Dynamical Systems. At Tufts University: proposed, devised and led a new undergraduate topics course.  The course has also been taught twice at Saint Anselm College

 

Dynamical Systems  At Tufts University: proposed, devised and led a new graduate topics course.

 

Courses Taught

                              

Basic Concepts of Mathematics, College Algebra, Introductory Probability and Statistics, The Nature of Mathematics, Fundamentals of Mathematics, Calculus for Business and Social Science Majors, Calculus I, Calculus II, Calculus III, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, Modern Geometry, Complex Analysis, Discrete Mathematics, Numerical Analysis, Mathematical Statistics, History of Mathematics, Modern Algebra, Chaos, Dynamical Systems (graduate course), several independent studies for undergraduate students collaborating in research projects.   

     

 

Service

 

Chair of the Mathematics Department.  Elected Saint Anselm College Faculty Senator. Mathematics Society faculty advisor. Committee service includes: Budget Advisory Committee, Planning Committee, Library Advisory Committee, Networking Committee, Academic Computing Committee, Tenure Review Committee, Promotion Review Committee.