Stetson University

Erich Friedman

Associate Professor of Mathematics

Erich Friedman knew in grade school that he wanted to be a mathematics professor. After attending an engineering college and graduate school, he came to Stetson in 1992. His thesis was in applied probability, but he now publishes in a variety of other fields. He grew up playing games, including chess, poker, bridge, backgammon, go, and mah jongg, and now teaches a popular game theory course. He enjoys puzzles, and now owns the largest puzzle collection in Florida. He also creates pencil puzzles which have appeared in Games, World of Puzzles, Brain Games, on NPR, and are regularly used for the U.S. Puzzle Championship. He maintains the popular Math Magic website devoted to recreational mathematics, as well as a website that reviews mini-golf courses in Central Florida.

Education

  • Ph.D., in mathematics, Cornell University, 1991
  • M.S., in mathematics, Cornell University, 1989
  • B.S., in mathematics, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, 1987

Course Topics

  • Introduction to Mathematical and Statistical Modeling
  • Mathematical Game Theory
  • Probability
  • Mathematical Statistics
  • Calculus I, II, and III

Research Interests

  • Geometric packing, covering, and tiling
  • Combinatoral geoemetry
  • Game theory
  • Graph theory
  • Computational complexity

Publications

  • "Hinged Dissection of Polyominoes and Polyforms," (with E. Demaine, M. Demaine, D. Eppstein and G. Frederickson), Comp. Geometry Theory and Applications
  • "Pascal's Triangle and the Boltzmann Distribution," (with T. Grubbs), The Chemical Educator
  • "Packing Unit Squares in Squares: A Survey and New Results," Electronic Journal of Combinatorics

Erich Friedman

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