mathematics

Sylvia Wiegand

Sylvia Wiegand is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sylvia Wiegand rather than just read about it. In short: Sylvia Margaret Wiegand (born March 8, 1945) is an American mathematician. Early life and education Wiegand was born in Cape Town, South Africa.

Key takeaways

Sylvia Wiegand belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sylvia Wiegand to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sylvia Wiegand from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sylvia Margaret Wiegand (born March 8, 1945) is an American mathematician.

Early life and education Wiegand was born in Cape Town, South Africa. She is the daughter of mathematician Laurence Chisholm Young and through him the granddaughter of mathematicians Grace Chisholm Young and William Henry Young. Her family moved to Wisconsin in 1949, and she graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1966 after three years of study. In 1971, Wiegand earned her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her dissertation was titled Galois Theory of Essential Expansions of Modules and Vanishing Tensor Powers.

Career In 1987, she was named full professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln; at the time Wiegand was the only female professor in the department. In 1988, Sylvia headed a search committee for two new jobs in the math department, for which two women were hired, although one stayed only a year and another left after four years. In 1996, Sylvia and her husband, Roger Wiegand, established a fellowship for graduate student research at the university in honor of Sylvia's grandparents. From 1997 until 2000, Wiegand was president of the Association for Women in Mathematics. Wiegand has been an editor for Communications in Algebra and the Rocky Mountain Journal of Mathematics. She was on the board of directors of the Canadian Mathematical Society from 1997 to 2000. Wiegand was an American Mathematical Society (AMS) Council member at large.

Awards and recognition Wiegand is featured in the book Notable Women in Mathematics: A Biographical Dictionary, edited by Charlene Morrow and Teri Perl, published in 1998. For her work in improving the status of women in mathematics, she was awarded the University of Nebraska–Lincoln's Outstanding Contribution to the Status of Women Award in 2000. In May 2005, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln hosted the Nebraska Commutative Algebra Conference: WiegandFest "in celebration of the many important contributions of Sylvia and her husband Roger Wiegand." In 2012, she became a fellow of the AMS. In 2017, she was selected as a fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics in the inaugural class.

References

External links Sylvia Wiegand's homepage Sylvia Wiegand's Author profile on MathSciNet

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sylvia Wiegand

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sylvia Wiegand claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sylvia Wiegand before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sylvia Wiegand ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sylvia Wiegand

In research: Sylvia Wiegand appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sylvia Wiegand in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sylvia Wiegand is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1945 births, 20th-century American mathematicians, 20th-century American women mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sylvia Wiegand outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sylvia Wiegand in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sylvia Wiegand means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sylvia Wiegand out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sylvia Wiegand in simple terms?

Sylvia Margaret Wiegand (born March 8, 1945) is an American mathematician. Early life and education Wiegand was born in Cape Town, South Africa.

Why does Sylvia Wiegand matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sylvia Wiegand?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sylvia Wiegand.