Welcome To My Mathematical Home

This website is constructed and maintained by  Leo Andrew McCreary Lusk, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Gulf Coast Community College, in Panama City, Florida.

Previously a life-long resident of the north ("West by gosh Virginia") I came to Florida in 1998 to enjoy the seasonal golfing and beautiful beaches that can be found here.

Purpose of this site

This website serves a dual purpose: it assists my students with their education while here at Gulf Coast Community College; it also serves as a personal outlet for myself.

I am the course coordinator for the two liberal arts mathematics courses here: MGF 1106 Mathematics for Liberal Arts I, and MGF 1107 Mathematics for Liberal Arts II. I teach other courses as assigned. The liberal arts math courses are college credit courses designed for non-math, non-science majors where breadth of knowledge and understanding is often more important than depth.

I try to maintain web sites for each of the classes I am teaching. The links to these sites are found at the left. Any student of mine can click on the course they are enrolled in with me and be taken to a site with information pertinent to that course.

Anyone may contact me at my email address:

  llusk@gulfcoast.edu

Or at (850) 769-1551 ext 2854.

Projects

At the request of the College I have designed four courses currently in use at Gulf Coast Community College. These are MAT 0024 Introductory Algebra; MAT 1033 Intermediate Algebra; MGF 1106 Mathematics for Liberal Arts I; and MGF 1107 Mathematics for Liberal Arts II. I have written the textbooks we use in these courses and published them online so they would be free for our students. These books are published as PDF files so that they are fully printable if a hard copy is desired by the student. The titles to each of these books are given below. Please feel free to contact me if you wish to review any of them.

Discovering Algebra [MAT 0024]

Intermediate Algebra: The Quest to Understand the Universal Arithmetic [MAT 1033]

Mathematics: The Most Natural Science [MGF 1106]

Branches and Roots of the Tree Mathematica [MGF 1107]

Also, using Blackboard, I have developed computer quiz and test banks of questions numbering in the tens of thousands that go with these courses. I assist the Instructors who teach these courses by monitoring the question banks and making corrections where needed.

These projects have opened the door for me to represent Gulf Coast Community College as a presenter at many different types of math and technology conferences.

Some Favorites

Knowing that you are anxious, my most esteemed Dionysius, to learn how to solve problems in numbers, I have tried, beginning from the foundations on which the subject is built, to set forth the nature and power in numbers.

Perhaps the subject will appear to you rather difficult, as it is not yet common knowledge, and the minds of beginners are apt to be discouraged by mistakes; but it will be easy for you to grasp, with your enthusiasm and my teaching; for keenness backed by teaching is a swift road to knowledge.

From the dedication of Diophantus’ Arithmetica.

Dunguaire Castle in County Galway
Move your mouse over this picture.

Personal Information

Colleges & Career

I hold the Master of Science (MS) degree in Mathematics from West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV, home of the Mountaineers.  

Click here to see Woodburn Circle.

I taught at WVU for 14 years and while there I have won two outstanding teaching awards.  In the fall semester of 1996 I won the College of Arts & Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award.  In the spring semester of 1997 was given the West Virginia University Foundation Award which honors an individual as the University's outstanding teacher.

If ever in Morgantown be sure to visit the Boston Beanery.  A great place for food and fun.

I like to joke that my undergraduate degree (Bachelor of Science in Mathematics) is from a small private Catholic college that is not Notre Dame. It is in fact from the Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio.

Click here to see a larger picture of 
Christ the King Chapel.

Things I Enjoy

Reading, writing, and arithmetic (as in the theory of numbers) are things that I enjoy.  No great surprise there.  Of course, music is to be included with the three R's.

I read so I can learn more.  I write to express what I have learned and to teach others.  I study the theory of numbers because it is the branch of mathematics I love the most.

My musical tastes range from Classical, to New Age, to Celtic.  A favorite site of music is MP3.com.  Check out the cool Celtic music under the heading of World/Folk.

Mathematical Interests

My favorite areas of mathematics are the history of mathematics and the theory of numbers.  Although self-educated in the history of mathematics I have established and maintain connections with many of the world's leading historians of mathematics.

I belong to two history research groups (Historia Matematica and the Math History List) and keep current with the latest developments and readings through these groups.

Number theory was my first love in mathematics.  Many of the great masters such as Gauss, Euler, Fermat, and others, laid the foundations for the classical study of number theory and gave it a unique position in the world of mathematics.

Heritage

I am of Irish and English heritage, and display my pride, much to the chagrin of many of my colleagues, by using all parts of the family name(s). 

Interesting is the fact that McCreary is actually the English side of my family while Lusk is the Irish side.

There is a town in north Dublin county named 'Lusk'.  (I know, there is one in Wyoming too, but the Pubs are better in Ireland:-)