Eve Alexandra Littig Torrence (born 1963)[1] is an American mathematician, a professor emerita of mathematics at Randolph–Macon College,[2] and a former president of mathematics society Pi Mu Epsilon. She is known for her award-winning writing and books in mathematics, for her mathematical origami art,[3] and for her efforts debunking overly broad claims regarding the ubiquity of the golden ratio.[4][5]
Education, career, and service
Torrence was an undergraduate at Tufts University.[2][3] She completed her Ph.D. in 1991 at the University of Virginia; her dissertation, The Coordination of a Hexagonal-Barbilian Plane by a Quadratic Jordan Algebra, was supervised by John Faulkner.[6][7]
She was Claire Booth Luce assistant professor at Trinity Washington University from 1991 to 1994,[8] before joining the Randolph–Macon College faculty in 1994.[3] She earned tenure there in 1999, and became a full professor in 2008.[9] She retired in 2021,[9][10] and was given the Bruce M. Unger Award by Randolph–Macon College on the occasion of her retirement.[9]
She served as president of Pi Mu Epsilon, the US national honor society in mathematics, from 2011 to 2014.[3] The Maryland-District of Columbia-Virginia Section of the Mathematical Association of America gave her their Sister Helen Christensen Service Award in 2019.[11]
Torrence, Bruce F.; Torrence, Eve (1999), The Student's Introduction to Mathematica: A Handbook for Precalculus, Calculus, and Linear Algebra, Cambridge University Press[12]
Torrence, Eve (2011), Cut and Assemble Icosahedra: Twelve Models in White and Color, Dover Publications
A sculpture, "Sunshine", by Torrence is displayed in a Randolph–Macon College building lobby; it depicts the compound of five tetrahedra as five interlocked aluminum shapes, inspired by an origami version of the same compound folded by Tom Hull.[10] She also won the "Best in Show" award in a 2015 juried mathematical art exhibit, for her pieces titled "Day" and "Night", mathematical origami using folded cardstock rhombi to make hyperbolic paraboloid surfaces, connected in the pattern of a rhombic dodecahedron:[3]
Torrence, Eve (2014), "Making Sunshine: A First Geometric Sculpture", in Greenfield, Gary; Hart, George; Sarhangi, Reza (eds.), Proceedings of Bridges 2014: Mathematics, Music, Art, Architecture, Culture, Phoenix, Arizona: Tessellations Publishing, pp. 461–464, ISBN978-1-938664-11-3
Torrence, Eve (2015), "Day and Night", Mathematical Art Galleries: 2015 bridges conference, The Bridges Organization
^Torrence, Eve Alexandra Littig (1991), The coordination of a hexagonal-barbilian plane by a quadratic jordan algebra (Ph.D. thesis), University of Virginia, doi:10.18130/V3X63B46Q, MR2687524
