Math teacher again captivates audience

Mike Sequeria (R.) answers Anne Van Horne's question after class. Photo by Conrad Weiler

Captivating his audience with a wide range of examples, COCCs math department chairman Mike Sequeria demonstrated graphic examples visual displays of information.

Meeting with Sisters COCC's Lunch and Learn class last Thursday, Sequeria exhibited Saturn in pictures and text from Galileo's writings from 1613. These stationary two-dimensional objects were contrasted to the work of Christian Huygens (1659), which demonstrated movement of the planet and, for the first time, showed the rings of Saturn depending on the viewer's position on earth.

"This was a visual display of information using still primitive telescopes," commented Sequeria.

Sequeria displayed a map of London (1854) that was used as a visual detective device to answer the mysterious cholera outbreak causation. The map clearly showed where deaths had occurred from cholera and the association with the Broad Street water pump station. As soon as the pump handle was removed (stopping use) the cholera outbreak subsided.

One of mobster John Gotti's trials was highlighted, showing how defense lawyers used a clever visual graphic to persuade the jury that Gotti might be innocent. The graphic clearly listed all the criminal activities of government informants. The informants were either as bad or worse than Gotti and not believed by the jury.

The Vietnam Memorial Wall was used in describing transmission of visual information. The Wall lists the 58,000-plus U.S. military deaths chronologically (not alphabetically) and memorializes each person over the course of that war.

Finally, a visual temperature chart was shown to illustrate why the O-ring malfunction that led to the Challenger space shuttle tragedy (January 27, 1986) might have been avoided. The cold led to O-rings losing resiliency and failing. Graphic data had been presented but was too obscure and difficult to interpret prior to the shuttle mission.

From a previous visit, Sequeria had left a homework assignment for students to bring graphic examples from news sources to dissect. Several were discussed covering motor vehicle accidents, city council voting in Bend and nutrition for children.