The 2026 MoMath Gala

Tuesday, October 6, at 6:30 pm Table reservations now available (in person) Don’t miss math’s most fashionable event of the season! Join us on Tuesday, October 6, for MoMath’s annual gala, a special evening celebrating mathematical art, play, puzzles, and discovery. Inspired by the world of M.C. Escher — and honoring Martin Gardner, whose columns introduced Escher to American audiences and turned a quiet Dutch printmaker into a cultural and mathematical sensation — this year’s gala offers a chance to experience the Museum after dark and hear a firsthand account of the connection between the two men. Guests will have the galleries to themselves, puzzling and playing their way through more than 70 hands-on exhibits and wandering through the groundbreaking new exhibit Mathematics and the Art of M.C. Escher — the first major show to trace the symmetry, infinity, perspective, and impossible spaces running through more than 60 of Escher’s prints. Then hear what Escher meant to Gardner directly from Gardner’s son Jim, and see some unique Gardner memorabilia, including his typewriter! A night of patterns, paradoxes, and impossible perspectives, only at MoMath. Black-tie attire is requested. Reserve your table today! Can’t attend the MoMath gala? Show your support by making a donation. Check out photos, videos, and press from past galas! Gala 2026: Grand Opening Gala Gala 2024: Celebrating MoMath on Fifth Gala 2023: Beyond Boundaries: MoMath on the Move Gala 2022: Celebrating 10 Years of MoMath Gala 2021: Building Beauty Gala 2020: Real and Rational Gala 2019: Symmetry Soirée Gala 2017: Fibonacci Fête Gala 2016: Race to the Finish Gala 2015: Party Under Construction Gala 2013: Illuminating Mathematics Gala 2012: MoMath Opening Ceremony 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 judge