What is MGF 1107 about? This course satisfies FIU’s Core Curriculum and General Education math requirements and can be used towards an exemption from the CLAST.  It is intended to be of interest to students majoring in Political Science, International Relations, History, Social Studies Education, and Public Administration.  Here are some examples of the topics we will study:

• Did you know the first presidential veto in history was a math bill?  George Washington vetoed a bill that gave a method for apportioning the 105 members of the House of Representatives among the 15 states.  The number of seats (and hence the number of electoral votes) each state receives depends on what apportionment method is used.  This actually affected the outcome of the 1876 presidential election, when Samuel Tilden, the Democrat, outpolled Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, by over 200,000 popular votes.    Hayes won the electoral vote, but Congress was routinely ignoring the apportionment method that was law at the time. Had the proper method of apportionment been used, the electoral vote would have gone to Tilden!  We will study various methods of apportionment in this course.
• If an election involves two options, majority rule is the accepted method of determining the outcome.  But if there are three or more options, there are various voting methods that can be used.  We will study these methods and their shortcomings.
• Suppose a county commission consists of three members, one representing each of the three cities in the county.  Voting power on the commission is proportional to the population of the cities with the commissioner from city A getting 49 votes, the commissioner from city B getting 40 votes, and the commissioner from city C getting 11 votes.  Since there are 100 total votes, 51 votes are required to carry any measure.  In this scenario the representative from city C has as much power as the representative from city A since no vote can be won without support from two commissioners.  In fact all three commissioners have equal power.  We will study ways of measuring power in weighted voting systems.
• Problems of fair division arise in divorces, inheritances, and International Relations.  How should the city of Berlin have been divided among the Soviets, French, British and Americans after World War II?  How should modern Jerusalem be divided among competing interests?  We will study mathematical methods of fair division.
• A game known as Chicken (which we urge you not to play) involves two drivers approaching each other at high speed.  Each must decide at the last minute whether to swerve to the right or not swerve.  There are 3 possible outcomes:

1) Neither driver swerves and they collide head-on, which is the worst outcome for both.
2) Both drivers swerve, and each loses face for “chickening out”.
3) One of the drivers swerves, losing face, while the other doesn't.
Game Theory, the mathematical study of strategy, helps us determine what each player should do.  This has applications to political negotiations such as the 1995 budget negotiations between President Clinton and the Republican Congress that resulted in the shutdown of part of the federal government.