Cody L. Patterson
Department of Mathematics
The University of Texas at Austin
cpatters (shift-2) math (period) utexas (period) edu
RLM 9.144 ~ Phone # (512) 475-9138

Greetings! Welcome to my personal webpage. My name is Cody Patterson, and I am a seventh-year Ph.D. student at the University of Texas under the direction of Daniel Allcock. My research interests lie in symmetry, group theory (especially Coxeter groups and their cousins, e.g. Artin groups), and topology.


Contents

NEW! A compendium of my problem sets and other teaching-related writing can be found here.

For more information on my mathematical pursuits, please see the section titled Research.

If you're a student and want information about a class I am teaching, please see the section titled Teaching.

You can learn more about me in the section titled Personal.

If you'd like to learn more about math competitions, please see the section titled Contests.

And if you don't like it here and want to leave, you can find a list of my favorite Links at the bottom of this page.


Research

Papers and Preprints -- Coming soon!

My current work is on a generalization of Serre's property FA. A group G is said to have property FA if every action of G by isometries on a tree has a global fixed point. We can extend property FA to a property FA_n, where n is any positive integer, by replacing the word "tree" with "n-dimensional CAT(0) polyhedral cell complex." My goal is to determine for what values of n a Coxeter group W has property FA_n. My more immediate goal is to do this for Coxeter groups whose minimal-rank infinite special subgroups have rank 4.


Teaching

What is a mathematics teacher's real mission? What can we do to increase the effectiveness of our teaching? I explore these questions, in view of my own teaching experience, in my Statement of Teaching Philosophy. (Coming Soon)

Courses

Fall 2009: M333L (Structure of Modern Geometry), Assistant (Michael Starbird)

Spring 2009: M316K (Foundations of Arithmetic), Instructor

Fall 2008: Saturday Morning Math Group, Coordinator

Summer II 2008: M305G (Precalculus), Instructor

Spring 2008: Saturday Morning Math Group, Coordinator

Fall 2007: M210E (Emerging Scholars Program Math Workshop), Instructor

Spring 2007: M325K (Discrete Math), Assistant (Anish Ghosh)

I am particularly interested in inquiry-based instruction in mathematics, or as it is often called, the Moore Method. I am actively involved with the Moore Method teaching group in our department.


Personal

You can find a brief history of my life here.

Contests

As a high school student, I enjoyed the challenge of competing in local and national math competitions. My participation in these events challenged me to use (and sometimes invent) ideas beyond the typical math curriculum, and gave me the opportunity to meet other people who enjoy the beauty of mathematics.

If you're new to math competitions and want to know what the buzz is all about, or you want to learn more about my experience with math contests, click here.

Or if you want to learn more about specific math competitions, here are links to their websites:

National

The American Math Competitions, the most highly recognized math competition series in the United States.
The Mandelbrot Competition, an excellent mail-order league that offers several rounds of competition (individual and team) each year.
The Math League, another very good mail-order league with multiple rounds of competition (individual) each year.
The USA Mathematical Talent Search, a wonderful competition in which students can participate individually for free.
The American High School Internet Mathematics Competition, a relatively new math competition that is administered online. Takes place every fall, early in the school year.
The American Regions Math League, a national contest for large teams (15 students!) that takes place in late May each year. Teams are organized by various math coaches across the US; if you wish to participate, you should contact the ARML coach in your area.
Mathcounts, by far the best competition for middle school students in America.

Regional - Texas

The Rice Math Tournament, or as I like to call it, "The Texas High School Math Championship." (But students from neighboring states often come to compete as well.) Held every February.
The Texas A&M Math Contest. The "Fall Classic" of math contests in Texas. Held every fall in October or November, depending on the Aggies' home football schedule.

Links

As promised, here are links to some of my favorite websites:

The University of Texas
Mathematics at UT
The Daily Texan

The Art of Problem Solving is a company that offers engaging, challenging math courses that go well beyond the standard curriculum. It's also a gathering place for people interested in math and science competitions, college advice, and general nerd culture.

I consider it my civic duty to keep up with current events; my favorite news outlet is that monolithic bastion of liberalism, CNN.com.

I'm also an unapologetic sports fan; I get my fix at ESPN.com.

In today's profit-driven society, it's nice to know that there is still something you can get for free: random numbers.