The Math Circle founders speaking in Santa Fe

WHAT : Lecture: "Was Space Made for Feeding Mathematical Invention?"

WHERE: Great Hall, Peterson Student Center, St. John's College

WHEN : Friday, February 22, 8 p.m.

WHO : Bob and Ellen Kaplan, The Math Circle, Harvard University

COST : This event is free of charge and open to the public.


DESCRIPTION:

The Kaplans will talk about the radical idea behind their Math Circle, while illustrating this idea by holding a Math Circle session with the audience. The Kaplans are holding a Math Circle Teacher Training Institute this summer at Notre Dame, in order to train people from across the country – and abroad – in their approach.


What is the Math Circle?

The Math Circle is a program of courses founded in 1994 by Bob and Ellen Kaplan of Harvard University, designed for students who enjoy math and want the added challenge of exciting topics that are normally outside the school curriculum. Math Circle teachers are experienced, committed, and enthusiastic, and its classes encourage a free discussion of ideas. While the courses are mathematically rigorous, the atmosphere is friendly and relaxed.


History of The Math Circle

Disturbed by the poor quality and low level of math education in the country, Bob and Ellen Kaplan, along with their colleague Tomás Guillermo, began The Math Circle at Harvard in September 1994. The first semester (ten sessions) saw 29 students; they now enroll over 200 students, ranging in ages from 5 to 17, and the courses they have taught in the intervening years are many and varied:

For 5-7 year olds, topics include: Sequences and Series, the Euclidean Algorithm, Prime Numbers, Iteration, and Parity

For 7-9 or 9-11 year olds, topics include: Cantorian Set Theory, Fractions and Decimals, Eulerian and Hamiltonian Circuits, Polygon Construction, Complex Numbers, Concurrency, and Weird Fractions

For 12-14 year olds, topics include: Polyhedra, Periodic Decimals, Propositional Calculus, The Fibonacci Sequence, Polygon Decomposition, Krasnoselsskii's and Brouwer's Theorem, The Golden Mean, Information Theory, Linear Algebra, and Taxicab Geometry

And for 15-17 year olds, topics include: Projective Geometry, Induction and the Pigeonhole Principle, Proofs and Refutations, Complex Analysis, Knot Theory, Hyperbolic Geometry, Relativity, Fractals and Combinatorial Geometry

The Math Circle teachers are careful to choose topics which are unlikely to be in the school curriculum - they see our role as widening and deepening the river, rather than accelerating its flow between narrow banks. Some courses appear at several levels: one of the glories of math is its constant upward spiral of sophistication. What seems to be the Math Circle Secret is their striving for understanding generated by the students' own conjectures and counterexamples, rather than aiming to cover a certain body of material in a fixed amount of time.


--
Celia Bedelia
Computer Fairy