His dog can do calculus--can yours?

Hope College mathematics professor Dr. Tim Pennings will be giving a talk entitled "Do Dogs Know Calculus?"  at 7:00 p.m. Thursday in room 102 of Luther's Olin Hall.

Says Pennings, "We will show that dogs - at least my dog, Elvis - knows calculus. That is, Elvis can find the optimal - fastest - route to a ball thrown into the water some distance down the beach. But what happens when Elvis is positioned in the water and retrieves a ball that is also in the water? When should he swim straight to the ball, and when should he swim in to the shore, run along the shore, and then swim back out to the ball? What is the bifurcation point for the change in optimal strategy? Does Elvis bifurcate? Does his fur bicate?"

Pennings is well known in the mathematics community, and was the recipient for one of two "Janet Anderson Lecture Awards" given by the Midstates Consortium for Math and Science in 2012

Pennings and Elvis were featured in a story done by ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97628

Organizers of the event say the speech will be enjoyable for a wide audience.