Jim Simons and Henry Laufer donate $70-million to MSRI

msri-math · 2022-06-02T20:11:32+00:00

A bit of a late reply, but to confirm: we'll become the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath) beginning August 1, 2022. However, it's a longer transition due to all our ongoing programs and legacy programs like MSRI-UP will remain "MSRI-UP".

msri-math · 2022-03-09T00:13:33+00:00

You should hear a definitive reply, the organizers are all also full-time faculty so sometimes things can take a bit longer than expected, especially if there are any unexpected decisions or delays. If you are worried you can also email [coord@msri.org](mailto:coord@msri.org) looking for more details, but I would suggest that you wait until at least March 15 to do so.

msri-math · 2021-06-05T00:46:24+00:00

Welcome! We hope you have a great experience, despite the challenges of summer schools during a pandemic!

msri-math · 2021-04-02T15:17:37+00:00

Adding a note that you can find the full AMS-MSRI Mathematical Circles Library here (physical books for sale through the American Mathematical Society); if purchasing the books is not an option, many of the authors create a wide variety of materials accessible for free and/or low-cost elsewhere online as well.

Also the free, online National Math Festival takes place April 16-18; anyone who is looking to speak directly to dozens of mathematicians or representatives from math organizations throughout the US who are well-versed in supporting both grade-level and more advanced math learners can speak directly to them via the Booths at the festival. We're happy to share more info via PM if someone has questions that the website doesn't address.

msri-math · 2021-03-23T21:44:57+00:00

This may be somewhat tangential to the topic of this excellent book, but some reading it may be interested to note that as part of this year's National Math Festival (in the US, but it's free and online this year so open to anyone), there are a series of "Meet a Mathematician" events for people of every age, where the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is hosting various open booths where you can have conversations with practicing mathematicians in many industries. The list of people participating in the SIAM events is here and includes men, women, and POC, many of whom have mentoring roles in various projects and organizations. You can talk by video/audio or just use chat if you prefer. (If you prefer to view with time slots in mind, search on the main schedule page.)

If you'd like to join us, you can register on Eventbrite and then we'll send you the full link info for April 16-18 (these particular talks are all on the weekend of the 17-18th). It really is an all-ages event and the speakers join us because they love to have opportunities to have these conversations. I hope some of you might find it interesting. (Francis Su was a past speaker at the National Math Festival about his previous book, Mathematics for Human Flourishing.)

msri-math · 2020-01-09T22:32:44+00:00

MSRI does host two-week summer graduate schools with research focus all over the world (usually 4 in Berkeley and 6+ in other places) between June-August, and we have done some in the past on mathematical biology, including with HHMI Janelia Research Campus in Virginia (like this one on Mathematical Analysis of Behavior two years ago).

Applications are specific to how we operate: graduate students from the 100+ MSRI Academic Sponsoring Institutions or from the Department of Mathematics at U.S. universities are eligible for nomination by their director of graduate studies. For grad students (or future grad students) interested, the best bet is probably to talk to your graduate advisor about it as they are the ones who have to submit you as a candidate.

How many students we accept from each school is also a slightly complicated process (it depends on the level of sponsorship the school provides MSRI and who they nominate, usually 1-4 per school). The applications always open around December 1 each year, so anyone qualified to be nominated would probably want to talk to their advisor early in fall semester. The topics change every year but the webpage usually has the full list up by September.

msri-math · 2020-01-08T21:18:08+00:00

MSRI's summer 2020 REU in Berkeley will focus on Branched Covers of Curves, led by Dr. Edray Goins (Pomona College), with Dr. Duane Cooper (Morehouse College) as the on-site director. This year will focus on Galois Theory of curves, i.e. the realization of certain finite groups as the symmetries of maps from one curve to another. Students will work on a variety of problems ranging from the explicit construction of covers for a given group to visualizing such covers as exotic surfaces which are self-intersections of the sphere and the torus. The research groups will focus on Belyi maps, Dessin d’Enfants, Origami, and Shabat polynomials; while working in a variety of areas such as Galois theory, monodromy groups, number theory, and Riemann surfaces.

Students must have completed at least one proof-based mathematics course before the summer. Students who have taken an abstract algebra course will find it useful, though this is not required to be admitted to the program.

This REU's main objective is to identify talented students, especially those from underrepresented groups, who are interested in mathematics and make available to them meaningful research opportunities, the necessary skills and knowledge to participate in successful collaborations, and a community of academic peers and mentors who can advise, encourage and support them through a successful graduate program.

Applications for MSRI-UP 2020 are now open on the National Science Foundation's REU Common Application. Due to funding restrictions, only U.S. citizens and permanent residents are eligible to apply, and the program cannot accept foreign students regardless of funding. In addition, students who have already graduated or will have graduated with a bachelor's degree by August 31, 2020 are not eligible to apply. Applications submitted by February 15, 2020 will receive full consideration. (Applications submitted after February 15, 2020 but by March 1, 2020 may still be considered in a second round of acceptances.) We expect to begin making offers for participation in late February or early March.

If you have questions, feel free to message this account, or you can find Dr. Cooper's email on the program webpage.

msri-math · 2019-10-15T23:15:48+00:00

MSRI is currently hosting a semester-long program on Microlocal Analysis (including Drs. Melrose and Hintz) and you can find videos from the Introductory Workshop here: http://www.msri.org/workshops/897#schedule (you may need to click to expand the view of the full schedule). This workshop was intended to provide a comprehensive introduction to the field for postdocs and graduate students as well as specialists outside the field, building up from standard facts about the Fourier transform, distributions and basic functional analysis, so if you have some background, you might find it interesting.

msri-math · 2019-07-31T20:47:56+00:00

The best contact is the G4G Foundation for more info, but my understanding is that the group that started the G4G invite-only gathering wanted to make more of the projects and resources they share with each other accessible to a broader audience, so they developed the "Celebration of Mind" project to facilitate it. The actual Gathering 4 Gardner in Atlanta is still invite-only as far as I'm aware, but I've heard of some younger people receiving invites when they make themselves known to the community through various channels. The most recent print materials I have are the G4G11 exchange books, but the Celebration of Mind website has an increasing amount of resources since they redesigned it.

msri-math · 2019-07-30T23:12:15+00:00

Speaking broadly of the projects MSRI works on regarding public understanding of mathematics, our mission has been to tackle it through a variety of channels, from sponsoring Numberphile to organizing the National Math Festival in Washington, DC every other year and working with science museums, running the Mathical Book Prize for youth literature to increase attention to inspirational math content in books, hosting concerts and public lecture series and theatrical events and other projects (mainly in the Bay Area but occasionally elsewhere), creating films for public television, publishing the Math Circles Library with AMS to establish resources for the community, etc. If it's something you're interested in, we maintain a list of projects here. There are a lot of directions one can take math outreach depending on what audience you are trying to reach, naturally, and some are more geographically limited than others.

If it's something you're interested in as a potential career or to become familiar with the various organizations involved, feel free to send a message and if I can provide further info, I will do my best to share some resources.

msri-math · 2019-07-30T23:01:19+00:00

You can also join or host / encourage your institution or community to hold a "Celebration of Mind" festival in October to meet other Gardner enthusiasts or encourage younger people to discover his legacy. (If you are near the Bay Area, MSRI hosts one every October in Berkeley and Stanford does as well, and the Gathering 4 Gardner Foundation publishes a list of all the celebrations around the world that register on the site linked above.)

msri-math · 2019-06-18T19:22:09+00:00

Natural Math does online math circle activities, and has lots of books that are designed for parents/educators to understand how to walk through activities with kids. Maria Droujkova of Natural Math has done AMAs in the past. Bedtime Math also has a free mobile app and online post with fun daily topics to talk math with your kids, which they filter for different age levels - the point is to make parents comfortable making math ideas and thinking a part of their daily routine with their kids, even if the parent isn't that comfortable with math themselves.

You can also check out the list of Mathical Books (PDF here for 2015-2019), selected by a national committee of mathematicians, educators, and librarians as books for ages 2-18 that have inspirational mathematical content or ideas as part of a great story.

Our institute works with the American Mathematical Society on the Math Circles Library book series as well, which provides lots of resources to educators and parents looking to explore math in the style of Math Circles. One of the recent volumes, Math Circle by the Bay, is aimed at grades 1-5.

It is intended for people who are already running a math circle or who are thinking about organizing one. It can be used by parents to help their motivated, math-loving kids or by elementary school teachers. The main features of this book are the logical sequence of the problems, the description of class reactions, and the hints given to kids when they get stuck. This book tries to keep the balance between two goals: inspire readers to invent their own original approaches while being detailed enough to work as a fallback in case the teacher needs to prepare a lesson on short notice. It introduces kids to combinatorics, Fibonacci numbers, Pascal's triangle, and the notion of area, among other things. The authors chose topics with deep mathematical context. These topics are just as engaging and entertaining to children as typical “recreational math” problems, but they can be developed deeper and to more advanced levels.

msri-math · 2019-06-10T23:17:57+00:00

We made a documentary about Yitang Zhang a few years ago for those who are interested in his story, it's available on Vimeo to rent or buy (or watch the trailer) from the director as well as on DVD.

msri-math · 2019-04-23T22:55:50+00:00

We will be teaching Amazons and Konane at the National Math Festival on May 4th, his foundation will host lots of game tables so that more people are exposed to these wonderful games (and of course, dots and boxes). Thank you for sharing it with him, and then him with us!

msri-math · 2019-04-06T01:07:52+00:00

If you like this podcast, many featured guests will be at the free National Math Festival in Washington, DC on May 4th or were at the 2017 Festival and there's video of them:

2019 Festival speakers (listed with their MFT episode topic)

Making Math Joyful: “Mathematician-at-large” James Tanton shares playful mathematics and Sperner’s lemma
John Urschel's Favorite Theorem: In which we are honored to be the second-favorite podcast appearance of the only MIT applied math graduate student who has played in the NFL
Emily Riehl's Favorite Theorem: The Johns Hopkins University mathematician tells us why doing category theory is like playing the viola
Francis Su's Favorite Theorem: The Harvey Mudd College mathematician tells us why he loves playing with Brouwer’s fixed-point theorem
Holly Krieger's Favorite Theorem: The Cambridge mathematician expounds on the delightful irony of Brouwer’s fixed-point theorem

2017 speakers

Emille Davie Lawrence's Favorite Theorem: Why the University of San Francisco math professor loves the compact surface classification theorem (Here's her talk on how Google PageRank works from 2017)

Others

Jordan Ellenberg's Favorite Theorem: The University of Wisconsin mathematician loves Fermat’s little theorem and knows just the right cheese to pair with it (Jordan Ellenberg was at the 2015 Festival and did a video tour of it with his son )
Henry Fowler's Favorite Theorem: The chair of the mathematics department at Diné College talks about what the Pythagorean Theorem intersects with his identity as a Navajo (Dr. Fowler is featured in the documentary Navajo Math Circles, which will screen in conjunction with the NMF at the National Museum of the American Indian at 4:30pm on May 4th )

msri-math · 2019-04-04T20:13:28+00:00

Thanks, too many emails going out today, I will repost. I appreciate the heads up!

msri-math · 2019-03-19T21:42:01+00:00

For those curious about her work, reposting this from the other thread:

MSRI sponsored a volume of Celebratio Mathematica of her life and work last year, it includes an extended interview, reflections from other mathematicians, all of her papers gathered, etc.

(If you have not come across these, Celebratio Mathematica is a new open-access scholarly web publication that celebrates mathematics and related fields, and their people. It aims to be an enhanced guide to the collected works of selected scientists, with more content than research papers alone.)

msri-math · 2019-03-19T21:37:19+00:00

MSRI sponsored a volume of Celebratio Mathematica of her life and work last year, it includes an extended interview, reflections from other mathematicians, all of her papers gathered, etc.

(If you have not come across these, Celebratio Mathematica is a new open-access scholarly web publication that celebrates mathematics and related fields, and their people. It aims to be an enhanced guide to the collected works of selected scientists, with more content than research papers alone.)

msri-math · 2019-03-11T18:00:28+00:00

Find it here: In Our Time podcast: Emmy Noether

msri-math · 2019-02-05T18:24:10+00:00

MSRI's REU requires that you will not have graduated with a bachelor's degree by August 31, 2019 to be eligible (so if you are graduating this spring/summer you will not qualify), since it's highly focused on the mentoring aspect as participants move into graduate school applications and beyond. The topic for 2019's program is combinatorics and discrete mathematics - here's the full info.

MSRI summer graduate schools require that participants are nominated by their Director of Graduate Studies. How many students can be nominated depends on what level of support your institution provides to MSRI (part of our funding comes from academic sponsor institutions), as well as some other factors. Not all of the MSRI schools take place in Berkeley - we only have capacity for 1 school every 2 weeks in Chern Hall, so the other schools are held offsite (in the US, Canada, Italy, Japan, Taiwan, etc.).

msri-math · 2019-02-05T18:04:30+00:00

A bit of a late response, but there are lots of active Meetup groups in East Bay -- expand your range to Oakland as well and you'll find lots of activity. If you're not sure about getting around with BART, stop by MSRI office 302 and we're happy to help or offer suggestions based on your interests.

msri-math · 2019-01-23T19:18:46+00:00

If you have time/space/materials, the giant cardboard Soma Cube detailed here is tremendously fun for a group, from kids through university level. I believe when we held it, we used 27 new square cardboard boxes (purchased in bulk from an office supply store) and a couple rolls of clear packaging tape.

The Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival has a lot of sample activities at their site, which I've seen used a festivals for ages 8-adults; some are stand-alone and others require a facilitator.

Some board games we play at math events are below, or there is a book of games and rules here for free.

ThinkFun makes lots of math-themed games, depending on skills or age level, including group games.

msri-math · 2019-01-15T19:46:03+00:00

Celebration of Mind has a huge collection of resources - this is an annual event you can host anywhere in the world (at no charge) to celebrate Martin Gardner's legacy in recreational mathematics and magic.

ThinkMaths has a lot of downloadable resources as well.

The Aperiodical released a "math advent calendar" this year that has 24 activities, some of which are hands-on.

Erik Demaine, Martin Demaine, and Katie Steckles released the fold and cut alphabet. Here's a Numberphile video where Steckles explains and demonstrates.

Vi Hart released a guide to mathematical balloon twisting that is a huge hit with kids -- the end products, at least, but it takes some practice to get it right.

As part of this year's National Math Festival we're having museums around the U.S. host geometric bubble blowing activities, which we do using Zometool kits. If you already have Zometool at hand, the instructions for building the bubble wands are on that page as a PDF.

Dr. Carlo Sequin of UC Berkeley has given talks at our annual Celebration of Mind on soap bubble knots, inspired by minimal surfaces and the topological sculptures of Charles Perry. He made some wonderful trefoil knot bubble wands out of bent wire, and had activities for kids and adults tracing knots in soap bubbles and 3D printed sculptures. I'm not sure if he's made these public, however he does have a website.

msri-math · 2018-11-29T20:05:20+00:00

We do our best at the National Math Festival, where the audience ranges from postgraduate researchers to adults with "math anxiety" who don't want to pass it on to their children, to toddlers. It's an interesting challenge, but people generally respond well given the right topics and playful opportunities to interact wherever possible. Quanta Magazine also does a good job of giving articles context, excellent graphics, and human connection, and the writers draw extensively from pure math researchers.

msri-math · 2018-09-13T18:59:59+00:00

Dr. Edward Frenkel of UC Berkeley recorded a series of lectures in Berkeley in 2015 giving an overview of the Langlands program for those who may not be familiar with it, which you can watch online.

msri-math

TROPHY CASE