Professor, Director of Math Department Outreach Program
(205) 934-2154
University Hall 4018
Research and Teaching Interests: Dynamical systems, Topology
Office Hours: T/TH 10:00 - 11:00 a.m.; and by appointment
Education:
- B.S., Kharkov University (Ukraine), Mathematics
- M.S., Kharkov University (Ukraine), Mathematics
- Ph.D., Kharkov University (Ukraine), Mathematics
I was born in Ukraine, in the former Soviet Union. My native language is Russian. I grew up in Kharkov, a city of 1.5 million in Eastern Ukraine. My family and I moved to Moscow and lived there until 1991, when we moved to the U.S.
I mostly do research in Dynamical Systems. It uses maps applied over and over (iterations of maps as these are called) to model processes and investigate how the latter can develop. I like this field of math because it is beautiful. If you ever come across the concepts or pictures of Julia sets or the Mandelbrot set, these are closely related to my area of interest. I am also interested in Topology, mainly planar Topology.
I teach Calculus using the so-called discovery method (or inquiry based method). It involves presentations made by students and requires active participation on their part. I also run a Fast Track Seminar and teach some graduate classes. I am a Red Cross donor, volunteer at Birmingham Humane Society and Children's Hospital, and an occasional tutor at local middle schools. With the help of Department of Mathematics at UAB I organize an annual UAB Math Talent Search contest that started in 2001.
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Research Interests
- Beautiful results.
- Surprising discoveries.
- Less machinery needed.
- The fields are very intuitive and visual.
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Recent Courses
Recently I have taught a few Calculus I classes and a graduate class of Topology. My teaching style includes strong student participation (including graduate courses such as Topology).
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Select Publications
I have published over 70 scientific articles. The list of all of them as well as the majority of articles themselves can be found on my personal website. Below please find the list of nine of my most interesting (in my view) publications. Whenever possible I provide links to the papers in pdf format.
- A. Blokh, M. Lyubich. Non-existence of Wandering Intervals and Structure of Topological Attractors of One-Dimensional Dynamical Systems 2. The Smooth Casee. Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems 9 (1989), 751-58.
- A. Blokh, M. Lyubich. Measurable Dynamics of S-Unimodal Maps of the Interval. Ann. Sci. Ecole Norm. Sup. (4), #5, 24 (1991), 545-73.
- A. Blokh. The Spectral Decomposition for One-Dimensional Maps. Dynamics Reported 4 (1995), 1-59.
- A. Blokh. Rotation Numbers, Twists and a Sharkovskii-Misiurewicz-type Ordering for Patterns on the Interval. Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems 15 (1995), 1-14.
- A. Blokh, M. Misiurewicz. New Order for Periodic Orbits of Interval Maps. Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems 17(1997), 565-74.
- A. Blokh, M. Misiurewicz. Typical limit sets of critical points for smooth interval maps. Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems 20 (2000), 15-45.
- A. Blokh, L. Oversteegen. "Wandering Gaps for Weakly Hyperbolic Polynomials," in Complex dynamics: families and friends, ed. by D. Schleicher. A K Peters (2008), 139-68.
- A. Blokh, R. Fokkink, J. Mayer, L. Oversteegen, E. Tymchatyn. Fixed point theorems for plane continua with applications. Memoirs of the AMS, 224 (2013), no. 1053, 110 pages.
- A. Blokh, D. Childers, G. Levin, L. Oversteegen, D. Schleicher. An Extended Fatou-Shishikura Inequality and Wandering Branch Continua for Polynomials. Advances in Mathematics 288 (2016), 1121-174.