Earlham College | A national liberal arts college in the Midwest
Igor Minevich
Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics

Igor Minevich came from the Ukraine in 1997 and stayed in Indianapolis from middle school through college. Igor went to IUPUI, where he received a B.S. in mathematics and minored in computer science and physics. He then did his Ph.D. in mathematics at Brown University, taught at Boston College for three years, taught at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology for two years, and finally came to Earlham for Fall 2019 as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics. Besides these areas, he's also interested in yoga and meditation.

Contact Info

Campus Mail
Drawer 138

Phone
765-983-1578

E-mail

Office
211 Center for Science and Technology

Office Hours
Mon. 4 - 5; Wed, Thu., Fri. 3 - 4

Website
Website Link

Programs/Departments

  • Computer Science
  • Mathematics
  • Physics and Astronomy

Degrees

  • Ph.D., Brown University
  • B.S., Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis

Selected Courses:

  • CS 128  Programming and Problem Solving
  • CS 310  Algorithms
  • MATH /MGMT 120  Elementary Statistics

My Ph.D. work was in arithmetic geometry, and in particular in the cohomology of topological groups with applications to number theory. I also work on cevian geometry with Patrick Morton. In addition, I like to work with undergraduates on topics of their choosing, especially the Lights Out Puzzle and the mathematics of chess.

There are many exciting and accessible (easily understandable and approachable) areas to explore with the Lights Out Puzzle. There are also many fun, probably NP-complete, puzzles that Igor is aware of that need an actual proof of NP-completeness (and perhaps a program to solve and generate new ones). Students are encouraged to ask Igor about the possibilities of working on either project, or any other idea(s) they may have.

Synthetic foundations of cevian geometry, IV: The TCC-Perspector Theorem. International Journal of Geometry 6 (2017), no. 2, 61–85. (with Patrick Morton). arXiv:1609.04297.

Vertex positions of the generalized orthocenter and a related elliptic curve, Journal for Geometry and Graphics 21 (2017), no. 1, 7-27. arXiv:1608.04614. (with Patrick Morton.)

Synthetic foundations of cevian geometry, III: The generalized orthocenter. Journal of Geometry. 108 (2017), no. 2, 437–455. (with Patrick Morton.) http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00022-016-0350-2

American Mathematical Society

I have done independent study projects with undergraduates ranging from the mathematics of chess to study of the stock market, but mostly I enjoy working on the Lights Out Puzzle with undergraduates. The standard puzzle is made up of a rectangular board of squares, each of which can be either on or off. All squares start on, and when one is clicked, it switches states but so do the squares directly adjacent (horizontally and vertically). The question is not just how to solve this puzzle by turning off all the lights but, perhaps more interestingly, how many solutions there are. There are lots of unstudied variants, such as changing the number of possible states of squares or the shape of the board that students can enjoy exploring, making conjectures, and proving them to develop a whole mathematical theory of their own.

Yoga, table tennis, playing piano, disc golf, badminton, volleyball and foosball.

Meditation, painting, cards and board games.

Earlham College, an independent, residential college, aspires to provide the highest-quality undergraduate education in the liberal arts and sciences, shaped by the distinctive perspectives of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

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Earlham College
801 National Road West
Richmond, Indiana
47374-4095
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Earlham admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin, age, gender and sexual orientation to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin, age, gender and sexual orientation in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.