Homepage of Ken Smith
I wear two hats (and sometimes both together):
You can contact me at:
- Email: kgs@maths.uq.edu.au
- Phone: (07) 3365 3129 (Maths) or 3365 6439 (Chaplaincy)
- Fax: (07) 3365 1477 (Maths) or 3365 6945 (Chaplaincy)
- Room: 741 (Priestley, Mathematics Building) or 117 (Chaplaincy
Centre)
I am generally around in the Maths Department between 8 and about 9:30
Tuesdays and Thursdays, and some afternoons on Tuesdays.
From about 10 to 12 on Tuesdays, and from 9:30 onwards on Thursdays, you
should find me in the Chaplaincy Centre. You may also find me there
(mostly) on Tuesday afternoons.
Since I am retired, and my time is largely my own, if you want to talk
to me at some time other than these, either send me an email or
ring the Chaplaincy -- we will probably be able to find a mutually
convenient time.
Areas of Interest
While I am prepared to listen and talk to anyone about almost anything,
I have studied the following for a number of years, and have rather more
knowledge about these than any other topic you might wish to discuss:
- Fluid mechanics generally: more particularly, rotating fluids, time
dependent viscous flow, similarity solutions in fluid mechanics
- Transonic fluid flow; aero-elastic phenomena.
- Road traffic flow.
- Computer typesetting of mathematics (and other things), using TeX
and its friends: LaTeX, AmS-TeX, MusiXTeX, . . .
Some years ago I added ArabTeX (for typesetting Arabic, Hebrew and some
other languages written from right to left) to the repertoire. I can
offer some help in typesetting Russian and other languages using
Cyrillic alphabets, and Greek and other languages using the Greek
alphabet.
- Cosmology (my interest here dates back to my honours thesis at
Sydney University).
- Science and religion generally: more particularly, the confusion
which has arisen with the rise of the creationist movement since the
1960s.
Arising out of some writing I had done in the area of Religion and
Science, I was elected a Fellow of the
Institute for the Study of
Christianity in an Age of Science and Technology, a group of
Christians in Australia with advanced qualifications in various academic
areas. For further information about ISCAST, as it is known, click on
the above link.
Annotated Bibliographies and Links to Web Sites
Many people, when starting to study an area of interest, are bewildered
by the large number of books written about the topic, or the vast amount
of information available on the Web. To assist such
people, I have prepared some bibliographies of books available in
University of Queensland libraries, with brief annotations, which relate
to my interests listed above, Some books are listed in more than one
bibliography. Some of the "bibliographies" also list links to
some selected Web sites of related interest.
CLICK HERE for further information
about and links to bibliographies and Web sites.
Publications
To go to a page where you can find lists of some of my publications,
CLICK HERE
Unpublished Papers
In common with many other people, I have written an assortment of papers
on all sorts of subjects. Some of these were in response to requests to
talk about some aspect of the world around us in which mathematics plays
an essential role. A number of papers in this area were presented to
either school students or school teachers, as a way of encouraging them
to take more interest in some of the applications of mathematics.
Others were initially prepared as papers written for subjects I took
as part of my BA or MLitSt studies at the University of Queensland.
Some of these are in the original form; others have undergone minor
revisions.
Some of these are in the form of formal papers; others are in the form
of notes handed out for a talk; yet others provide copies of OHPs used
in talks, commonly interspersed with notes for the talk.
In addition to my areas of special expertise listed above, I am only too
happy to talk about any of these unpublished papers and related topics.
This section is still under construction,
but to see the present list of unpublished papers available
CLICK HERE
Credo
Since I started working in
Chaplaincy Services
(click on St Lucia Campus, then click on Chaplain's Assistant for more
details) a number of people have asked me about my particular religious
beliefs. I have put together something, very little of it original,
expressing these beliefs. Interested people might like to try
identifying the sources I used in compiling my Credo, which you can look
at if you
CLICK HERE.
Miscellaneous
Some Web work in progress
This page last modified 21 September 2007