MAA Writing Awards
When Close is Close Enough
Year of Award: 2001
Publication Information: The American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 107, No. 6, June 2000, pp. 489-499
Summary: This paper asks the question, "For algebraic integers a and b, how close do a and b have to be to each other to correctly infer that they are equal?" The method provided to answer this question uses ideas from elementary linear algebra.
About the Author: (from The American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 107, No. 6, (2000)), E.R. Scheinerman is a professor in the Mathematical Sciences Department at the Johns Hopkins University. He was an undergraduate mathematics major at Brown, and received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton. His research interests are in discrete mathematics. During academic year 1999-2000, he is an “internal visitor” to the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Hopkins.
