|
 |
|
Michael Sostarecz |
Sports fans might have
heard a player described as a “glue guy” on his team. Such players may
not dominate the headlines or the boxscores, but their presence greatly
enhances a team’s chemistry.
In the world of academia, the phrase “glue guy” doesn’t get nearly as
much use, but a case can be made that assistant professor Michael
Sostarecz fits the bill.
Sostarecz’s work as an
applied mathematician spans several academic disciplines, and it’s
fitting that chemistry is one of them.
A former visiting
professor in the physics department, Sostarecz will begin his third year
at Monmouth this fall in his new role as a tenure-track position in the
mathematics and computer science department.
He was recently
interviewed for a video promoting the college’s project to build an
academic complex for the science and business departments. While
discussing Sostarecz’s role at the college, the interviewer was struck
by the many disciplines that his work covers and called him “a living,
breathing example of where (the college is) going with this building.”
Sostarecz talked about a
project he was working on with one of his students, called the
Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. Simply put, liquid in a beaker switches
colors over and over again between red and blue. That part of the
reaction pertains to chemistry and mathematics, Sostarecz explained.
When a petri dish replaces a beaker, spatial patterns are introduced,
which brings in physics.
“Why study it?” asked
Sostarecz. “The way the colors regularly change is like the beating of
your heart. When you have a heart attack, there are spatial patterns on
your heart that interrupt the pumping of your blood. So this ends up
being the model system for studying heart attacks. So you add biology
in, and you have four disciplines all in one single project.”
Although his work also
touches the business world – i.e., equations that map the movement of
the stock market – Sostarecz doesn’t claim to be the person who takes
big ideas and turns them into money-making products. Rather, he’s more
interested in the early part of such projects and in finding ways to
move them forward.
“Things in life are not
static, so if you try to model them, you need to model how they change,”
he said of the role his mathematics takes. “Rate of change is a
derivative – derivative is all calculus.”
When the stock market
changes rapidly, it’s often compared to a roller coaster, so it’s
fitting that Sostarecz’s most recent project involved a real “thrill
ride.” Sostarecz and his students recently took advantage of an
opportunity at Six Flags amusement park in St. Louis to model the
non-static ways of The Boss, which features nearly a mile of track and
hits a top speed of 66 miles per hour.
|
 |
|
Students Brad Horn (left) and Scott Wolfmeyer
rode the rollercoaster at Six Flags with the advanced GPS device.
|
Sostarecz and his students
took two trips to Six Flags, accompanied by a $4,000 advanced GPS
(Global Positioning System) handheld device. The students, who all have
strong backgrounds in physics, had strong stomachs, as well, climbing
aboard The Boss repeatedly with the GPS device to collect mapping data.
The MC contingent’s first
trip to Six Flags was in conjunction with the park’s annual Math,
Science and Physics Day, which is sponsored by SLAPT (St. Louis Area
Physics Teachers). Six Flags is closed to the general public, allowing
students and teachers to conduct experiments with the rides.
“Most of the students who
attend are in high school, and their experiments are more qualitative,”
explained Sostarecz. “Their teachers might ask them to note when they
‘feel’ certain things, such as acceleration or G-force.”
Sostarecz’s students
focused their research on data collected from the GPS device, which
“lets you know where you are on the face of the Earth at any given
time,” he said.
To collect enough data,
the device had to be taken on ride after ride after ride, and Sostarecz
said his students were up for the task. That was especially true on the
second date, which was set up for the group by professional engineer Jim
Harig, Six Flags’ director of maintenance.
“The second day we went,
three students and I rode The Boss 20 consecutive times, recording
data,” he said. “Some of the students had stretches of going on eight
consecutive times or riding 12 times in a 13-ride stretch, but my max
was four.”
(Perhaps it was after his fourth consecutive ride that a Six Flags
worker saw Sostarecz with the GPS device and mistook it for a heart
monitor.)
“The coolest thing on the
second trip was how some kids were mad because they saw that we were
able to keep riding,” said Brad Horn of Woodhull, who, along with
Elizabeth McIntyre of Pekin, made both trips to St. Louis. “But then the
next time around, some of them would ask what we were doing, and after
we explained, their attitude and facial expressions changed and they
became supportive. One guy even asked if he could take it around on a
try, but for a such an expensive piece of equipment, even we were scared
to carry it!”
“Every time we got into
one of the cars with the GPS device, we would hold onto that darn thing
tighter than we would our seats,” said McIntyre. “We got good results,
but after about the 15th time, it starts to hurt a little.”
“By the time we broke for
lunch, I’d had enough of that ride,” agreed Horn.
Others who participated on
one of the trips were Tom Danielson of Galesburg, Nick Jacobs of
Schaumburg, Mark Shoemaker of Kewanee, Jamie Walker of Brimfield and
Scott Wolfmeyer of Peoria. All seven are members of the college’s
Society of Physics Students.
“We recorded our position
on Earth as a function of time, and the goal is to bring the data back
into the classroom for future math and physics students,” said
Sostarecz, who also plans to write a paper on the experience. “The
students were really excited about the project.”
Sostarecz explained that
the data lends itself to the simple “XY position” of the roller coaster,
but “through calculus we can find the velocity as a function of time and
determine how energy is being transferred throughout the ride.”
The Boss is ranked among
the nation’s top five wooden roller coasters, and Sostarecz said that
its wood foundation was key, allowing for less signal interference and
better data.
Sostarecz and many of his
faculty colleagues are keenly interested in exploring such innovative
ways to teach in this new area of technology. Field trips are certainly
one way, but Sostarecz also believes that the college’s new academic
complex will open up many avenues.
“Flexibility is one of the
biggest things the building will provide,” said Sostarecz, whose wife,
Audra, is an assistant professor in Monmouth’s chemistry department.
“We’ll be able to go from a lecture setting to a group collaboration or
from a lecture to a lab in a way that’s not possible with our current
building.”
He added, “One of the
greatest things I like about the new building is air conditioning. We’ll
be able to bring our students in during the summer and really focus on
these interdisciplinary projects and extend their knowledge.”
For Sostarecz,
“interdisciplinary” is the key word.
“My mathematics would be
less interesting without the interdisciplinary nature of the rest of the
building,” concluded the “glue guy,” who was also referred to by the
interviewer as the “poster child” for Monmouth’s interdisciplinary
studies emphasis. “For me, it’s all about problem solving. I feel that
our students end up with good problem-solving skills. They’ll be good
critical thinkers.”
