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About this event
One of 11 upcoming events at MoMath: the National Museum of Mathematics.
Thursday, October 1, at 3:00 pm ET (online) MoMath is open in its spectacular new home at 635 Sixth Avenue, featuring more than two dozen original new exhibits. Each month, one new exhibit will be highlighted as MoMath shares its story — from conception to design to fabrication. Hear the back stories from the creators and builders of the exhibits, and discover the fascinating mathematics behind the magic. The following events are currently available as video recordings. Click on each title to learn more about — and purchase — recordings. With World Cup visitors crowding New York, hotel rooms are limited. MoMath strongly recommends booking early. MoMath has reserved a fully refundable block of rooms at three conveniently located hotels: Additional hotel options: In this imaginative, short book inspired by Alice in Wonderland, Aastha transports readers into “Calculand,” where Alice encounters the Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, and a delightfully silly caterpillar. Along the way, these whimsical characters introduce her to the core ideas of calculus: derivatives, limits, and the chain rule. With lively illustrations and playful storytelling, the project makes potentially intimidating concepts feel approachable. The judges admired the ingenuity of blending a beloved literary classic with mathematical ideas to create a welcoming doorway into calculus. Click here to read Aastha’s book. Purav’s “The Ballad of the Broken Sum” is a poetic yet comical tragedy told from the perspective of the harmonic series itself. Through verse, the series laments its fate: each term shrinking smaller and smaller, yet the sum forever refusing to settle. Along the way, Purav weaves in classical proofs—like Oresme’s grouping argument—while capturing the anxiety, persistence, and paradoxical “unharmonic” quality of this famous divergent series. The work is bold, poignant, and remarkably original, transforming a deep mathematical idea into a human drama. The judges were struck by its gutsiness, creativity, and emotional resonance, praising it as an unforgettable example of how poetry can illuminate mathematics. Click here to read Purav’s poem. Nickita and Philina bring high energy to this original musical performance about derivatives of trigonometric functions. Playing the keyboard and violin with jaunty flair, they perform a witty, memorable song that recites the often-confusing formulas in a way that’s hard to forget. The judges praised the musicianship, creativity, and humor of the performance, noting how the catchy tune will help students recall the formulas long after the performance is over. It’s a joyful example of how music can make learning math both fun and memorable Click here to watch their video. Sujal’s essay brings a humanistic eye to the graphs of Algebra II and precalculus. The undulations of a sine wave become metaphors for life’s ups and downs; the shape of a circle mirrors the cyclical nature of life. By interpreting graphs as echoes of human experience, Sujal invites readers to see familiar xy-plane figures not as abstractions but as reflections of life itself. The judges admired this poetic interpretation, recognizing its potential to draw new audiences into mathematics by connecting it with emotion and meaning. Click here to read Sujal’s essay. Jason’s video turns a classic staircase problem into an explanatory tour de force. With humor, music, and great pacing, he introduces recursion formulas and dynamic programming through the question: how many ways can you climb an eleven-step staircase, if you can hop one, two, or three steps at a time? The ideas unfold in perfect order—skillful, but never pedantic—and culminate in real-world applications that show the broader reach of these techniques. The judges admired both the playfulness and the depth of this exceptionally well-crafted entry. Click here to watch Jason’s video. In this innovative video, Neha and Sanvi translate the Collatz conjecture into music. Each number becomes a note on the piano, producing motifs that repeat when different starting numbers converge to the same sequence. By hearing the conjecture, rather than just reading about it, viewers gain an intuitive grasp of this famously unsolved problem. The judges praised the creativity, clarity, and interdisciplinary flair of this project, highlighting how human sensitivity to sound can reveal hidden patterns in mathematics. Click here to watch their video. Inspired by the work of Vi Hart, Frida’s video explores why plants follow Fibonacci patterns. With a spirit of curiosity and wonder, she guides the viewer into the mathematics of phyllotaxis, the arrangement of leaves and seeds in plants. The explanations are pleasant and accessible, showing how the golden ratio and Fibonacci numbers appear in the natural world. The judges appreciated the enthusiasm and clarity of this project, as well as its ability to connect abstract mathematics to the beauty of everyday life. Click here to watch Frida’s v