Monday Morning Math: Evelyn Boyd Granville

Good morning!  It’s Finals Week here, and so this week will be the last MMM until after the Spring Semester starts in late January. We will use this final Monday Morning Math of 2023 to celebrate a mathematician who passed away this year at the age of 99:  Evelyn Boyd Granville, the second African American woman to receive a PhD in mathematics.  Evelyn Boyd was born in Washington, DC, on May 1, 1924. She loved school and graduated high school as valedictorian and Smith College, where she studied mathematics, theoretical physics and astronomy, summa cum laude. In 1949 she earned her PhD in Mathematics at Yale University, studying functional analysis. She worked as a postdoc for a year before becoming a university professor, but after two years returned to Washington, DC, to work at the National Bureau of Standards.  In 1956 Dr. Boyd joined IBM, where she worked on the space program.  She was part of NASA’s Project Vanguard (to launch a satellite), Project Mercury (to put a person into Earth orbit) and Project Apollo (to put a person onto the moon).

Dr. Granville (as she was known after her marriage to Edward Granville) continued with IBM for nearly 20 years before returning to teaching as a university professor.  She wrote a college textbook and taught math and computer science in California and Texas before returning again to Washington, DC, in 2010.    Evelyn Boyd Granville passed away in her home in Silver Springs, Maryland, on June 27, 2023.  Dr. Granville received many awards during her lifetime, including the Golden Anniversary Legacy Award from NAM (the National Association of Mathematicians) in 2019.   [I was at that ceremony, in the back of a very crowded room, and the love and admiration for Dr. Granville were palpable.]

For more information, see

• “My Life as a Mathematician” by Evelyn Boyd Granville in SAGE: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women
• “The Legacy of Evelyn Boyd Granville” by J. L. Huston in the NAM Newsletter (pp. 14+)
• “Pioneering NASA ‘Hidden Figure’ Evelyn Boyd Granville dies at age 99” by Josh Dinner at space.com

I wish you all a good December, and a happy and peaceful New Year!

Monday Morning Math: Double your money!

Good morning!  Happy December!   Did you make a New Year’s Resolution to save money?  If you did, and you haven’t quite met your goal yet, fear not – there’s still time!  But if you haven’t been in the habit of saving, it might take a bit to get into it, so we’ll start slow.

Try to save 1¢ today.  That’s as slow as we can make it.

Then tomorrow try to save 2¢ more.  Now you have 3¢!

Then on Wednesday try to save 4¢, so you have 7¢ total.

Then on Thursday try to save 8¢, and on Friday 16¢, and on Saturday 32¢, and on Sunday 64¢.  At that point you’ll actually saved $1.27 total, and you’re well on your way!  So here’s the question:

If you continue in this manner, saving twice as much each day as you did the day before, how much will you have when the year ends on December 31?  

(If you want to listen to some music while you figure it out, I’d suggest Beethoven’s Rage over a Lost Penny in G-Major, Op. 129.)

The answer, assuming you start today, on December 4, is $2,684,354.55.  Yes, well over 2 million dollars. And that’s a pretty good amount to have.  I hope it helps fund all your dreams! 

Fun Bonus:  There are variations on this problem, some having to do with money and some with grains or corn, that date back thousands of years! This conversation has some references.