Steven Finch received his B.A. in Mathematics from Oberlin College in 1982 and his M.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) in 1985. He worked in statistical weather forecasting for nine years, first at The Analytic Sciences Corporation (TASC) and then at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He was a technical writer at MathSoft Inc. from 1995 to 2002, held biostatistics programming positions at the Boston University School of Public Health and at Tufts-New England Medical Center, and now is Statistical Computing Scientist/Preceptor at the Harvard University Department of Statistics. Finch is also honored to have received a Book Fellowship from the Clay Mathematics Institute beginning in 2004, and a Ford award for expository excellence in 2005. In his other life, he is a piano accompanist and composer, and appears frequently as a classical recitalist and choral singer. A compact disc recording, entitled An Apple Gathering, of entirely original vocal music is now available; it features the extraordinary choral group Boston Secession and acclaimed concert soprano Nancy Armstrong.

Pure Mathematics publications

• S. R. Finch, Mathematical Constants, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003; MR 2004i:00001.
• S. R. Finch, G. Martin and P. Sebah, Roots of unity and nullity modulo n, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 138 (2010) 2729-2743; UBC preprint.
• S. R. Finch and P. Sebah, Comment on "Volumes spanned by random points in the hypercube", Random Structures Algorithms 35 (2009) 390-392; MR 2010i:52008.
• S. R. Finch and I. Hueter, Random convex hulls: A variance revisited, Adv. Appl. Probab. 36 (2004) 981-986; MR 2005m:60015
• S. R. Finch and J. E. Wetzel, Lost in a forest, Amer. Math. Monthly 11 (2004) 645-654 [winner of the Ford award]; MathDL reprint; MR 2006d:51016.
• N. J. Calkin, S. R. Finch and T. B. Flowers, Difference density and aperiodic sum-free sets, Integers 5 (2005) A3; MR 2006i:11024.
• P. E. Manne and S. R. Finch, A solution to the bent wire problem, Amer. Math. Monthly 109 (2002) 750-752; MR1927626.
• S. Finch, Several constants arising in statistical mechanics, Annals of Combin. 3 (1999) 323-335; arXiv:math/9810155; MR 2001h:82035.
• S. Finch, The average value of the Smarandache function, Smarandache Notions J. 10 (1999) 95-96; 11 (2000) 140-141; MR 2000a:11129.
• N. Calkin and S. Finch, Conditions on periodicity for a sum-free set, Experim. Math. 5 (1996) 131-137; MR 98c:11010.
• J. Cassaigne and S. Finch, A class of 1-additive sequences and quadratic recurrences, Experim. Math. 4 (1995) 49-60; MR 96g:11007.
• S. Finch, Patterns in 1-additive sequences, Experim. Math. 1 (1992) 57-63; MR 93h:11014.
• S. Finch, Are 0-additive sequences always regular?, Amer. Math. Monthly 99 (1992) 671-673; MR1542165.
• S. Finch, On the regularity of certain 1-additive sequences, J. Combin. Theory Ser. A. 60 (1992) 123-130; MR 93c:11009.
• S. Finch, Conjectures about s-additive sequences, Fibonacci Quart. 29 (1991) 209-214; MR 92j:11009.

Pure Mathematics preprints

• S. Finch, Supplementary materials for Mathematical Constants, in draft form.
• S. Finch, Birth cries for Mathematical Simulations in R (code, output & links).
  
  
• S. Finch, Convex hull of two orthogonal disks, arXiv:1211.4514.
• S. Finch, Oblique circular cones and cylinders, arXiv:1212.5946.
• S. Finch, Mutually equidistant spheres that intersect, arXiv:1301.5515.
  
  
• S. Finch, Width distributions for convex regular polyhedra, arXiv:1110.0671.
• S. Finch, Mean width of a regular simplex, arXiv:1111.4976.
• S. Finch, Mean width of a regular cross-polytope, arXiv:1112.0499.
• S. Finch, Planar projections and second intrinsic volume, arXiv:1203.2464.
• S. Finch, Rank-3 projections of a 4-cube, arXiv:1204.3468.
  
  
• S. Finch, Random Gaussian tetrahedra, arXiv:1005.1033.
• S. Finch, Two sample covariances from a trivariate normal distribution, arXiv:1005.1183.
• S. Finch, Perimeter variance of uniform random triangles, arXiv:1007.0261.
• S. Finch and A. Jones, Random spherical triangles, arXiv:1009.5329.
• S. Finch, Correlation between angle and side, arXiv:1012.0781.
• S. Finch, Three random tangents to a circle, arXiv:1101.3931.
  
  
• S. Finch and P. Sebah, Squares and cubes modulo n, arXiv:math/0604465.
• S. Finch, Idempotents and nilpotents modulo n, arXiv:math/0605019.
• S. Finch, Powers of Euler's q-Series, arXiv:math/0701251.
• S. Finch, Quartic and octic characters modulo n, arXiv:0907.4894.
• S. Finch and P. Sebah, Residue of a mod 5 Euler product, arXiv:0912.3677.
  
  
• S. Finch, Another look at AR(1), arXiv:0710.5419.
• S. Finch, CLT variance associated with Baxendale's SDE, arXiv:0809.5274.
  
  
• S. Finch, P. Sebah and Z.-Q. Bai, Odd entries in Pascal's trinomial triangle, arXiv:0802.2654.
• S. Finch, Z.-Q. Bai and P. Sebah, Typical dispersion and generalized Lyapunov exponents, arXiv:0803.2611.
  
  
• S. Finch and J. Shonder, Lost at sea, arXiv:math/0411518.
• S. Finch and L.-Y. Zhu, Searching for a shoreline, arXiv:math/0501123.
• S. Finch, The logarithmic spiral conjecture, arXiv:math/0501133.
  
  
• S. Finch, A convex maximization problem: Discrete case, arXiv:math/9912035.
• S. Finch, A convex maximization problem: Continuous case, arXiv:math/9912036.
  
  
• M. Schweitzer and S. Finch, Zero divisors in associative algebras over infinite fields, arXiv:math/9903182.

Problems seeking solutions

• S. Finch, Problem 11687 (Slicing a doughnut at random), Amer. Math. Monthly 120 (2013) 77.
• S. Finch, Problem 1305 (Well-centered tetrahedra, randomly inscribed), Elem. Math. 67 (2012) 151.
• S. Finch, Problem 979 (Acute chordal triangles, randomly inscribed), College Math. J. 43 (2012) 258.
• S. Finch, Problem 1895 (Three random intercepts of a segment), Math. Mag. 85 (2012) 151.
• S. Finch and B. Harder, Periodicity in sequences mod 3, incomplete work (2002).
• S. Finch, A convex maximization problem, J. Global Optim. 2 (1992) 419; journal reprint.

Public talks

• Lost hikers and bent wires, Geometric Potpourri Seminar, University of Illinois Mathematics Department (Oct. 2000).
• In search of a promised land, Visiting Lecture, Oberlin College Mathematics Department (Nov. 2004).

Applied Mathematics/Statistics publications

• R. Ziff, S. Finch and V. Adamchik, Universality of finite-size corrections to the number of critical percolation clusters, Phys. Rev. Lett. 79 (1997) 3447-3450; arXiv:cond-mat/9707168.
• S. Finch, R. Cole, G. Rasmussen, W. Wilson and S. Kim, Summer 1992 Terminal area-Local Analysis and Prediction System (T-LAPS) evaluation, MIT/LL Project Report ATC-218 (1994). *
• K. MacNichol and S. Finch, CFLOS4D accuracy assessment using Whole Sky Imager data, Proc. 1991 Conf. Cloud Impacts on DoD Operations and Systems (July 1991); also AF Phillips Laboratory Report PL-TR-91-2098. *
• S. Finch and K. MacNichol, Preliminary data requirements analysis for CFLOS4D/CFARC model validation, Proc. 1989/90 Conf. Cloud Impacts on DoD Operations and Systems (Jan. 1990).
• C. Medler and S. Finch, Semi-Markov models for cloudy and cloud-free intervals, Proc. 1988/89 Conf. Cloud Impacts on DoD Operations and Systems (Oct. 1988).
• S. Finch, S. Koenig and F. K. Sun, Modeling strategic weapon system error due to reentry weather, Proc. Military Operations Research Society 56th Symp. (June 1988).
  * Available through the National Technical Information Service, Springfield VA 22161.

Contact information

steven_finchharvard.edu

Photograph courtesy of Keith Glavash