HANDS-ON ACTIVITIES: 1:00-4:00 p.m.
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California Mathematics Festival: Join us for a hands-on problem-solving fair, California Mathematics Festival style! Everybody in your family from grandma to little brother can experience a dozen exciting math activities. You don’t have to watch; you’ll find problems you can do! Come have fun doing math with your whole family.
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National Museum of Mathematics (MoMath): Enjoy traveling exhibits from the National Museum of Mathematics in New York City
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Elwyn and Jennifer Berlekamp Foundation: Try to trap your opponent in the Game of Amazons; learn the trick of winning at perennial favorite Dots and Boxes; and get caught in a loop with Moebius Paper Crafts
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Stan Isaacs (College of San Mateo): Math and Logic Puzzles
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Dr. Carlo Sequin (UC Berkeley): 2-Manifold Sculptures
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Cubes and Things (cubesandthings.net): Cubes and Things Presents a Polyhedra Party! Color and cut your way to creating your own 3D math objects with local artist Stacy Speyer of Cubes and Things.
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MSRI: What kind of fun can you have with 27 cardboard boxes? You can build a Giant SOMA Cube, of course! This Tetris-like puzzle has challenged math lovers of all ages for almost 100 years.
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Dr. Clifford Stoll: A frequent guest on the YouTube channel Numberphile, Dr. Clifford Stoll is recognizable to a new generation as the man with 1,000 Klein bottles under his house. Stoll has worn many hats in life—astronomer, teacher, author, maker, TED speaker, Klein bottle salesman—but one thing he's never been is boring.
STAGE PRESENTATIONS
These short presentations will knock your socks off!
1:30-1:55 p.m. - "What IS It about Alice? Lewis Carroll in Popular Culture"
Mark Burstein (Lewis Carroll Society of North America)
Exactly what is it that makes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There the most quoted novels ever written, with citations on the scale of Shakespeare and the Bible? The Alice books been translated into 194 languages, illustrated by hundreds of artists, and have been adapted into plays, musicals, movies, videogames, and merchandise. What IS it about Alice that makes these novels so celebrated, studied, and influential? We'll explore the cultural fascination with Caroll's work in this highly illustrated talk by Mark Burstein, a lifelong, second-generation collector and president emeritus of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America and editor/introducer/contributor of thirteen books about Carroll, including The Annotated Alice: 150th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (W. W. Norton, 2015) and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: 150th Anniversary Edition Illustrated by Salvador Dalí (Princeton University Press, 2015).
2:00-2:25 p.m. - "The Math and Logic Puzzles of Lewis Carroll" (Interactive Presentation)
Stuart Moskowitz (Humboldt State University)
I always look for puzzles that help my students learn their math. Recently I learned that Rev. Charles Dodgson (mathematics lecturer at Oxford University, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland), studied one of my favorite Vanishing Area Puzzles (64=65), but had never published his results. I wanted to learn more. I was pointed towards the Parrish Collection at Princeton. There I found not only the unpublished manuscripts I was looking for, but other puzzles and letters and math lecture notes and so much more. There I found the greatest puzzle of all: Who is Lewis Carroll? This presentation explores the puzzles, the mathematics, and the man. First we’ll puzzle over Dodgson’s interpretation of how an 8 by 8 square can be cut up and rearranged to make a 5 by 13 rectangle (with an increase in the total area!). We’ll explore several other original puzzles by Dodgson as well as how he infused mathematics and, more interestingly, number sense, into the letters he wrote to children. The presentation is intended for 6th graders to 60th graders.
2:30-2:55 p.m. - "2-Manifold Sculptures and Surface Classification"
Dr. Carlo Sequin (UC Berkeley)
What is a 2-manifold? We'll look at ribbon sculptures by Charles Perry, surface sculptures by Eva Hild, and talk about surface classification and my efforts to make sculptures based on these mathematical concepts.
3:00-3:25 p.m. - Celebrate Global Math Week with "Exploding Dots!"
Dr. James Tanton (The Global Math Project and the Mathematical Association of America)
Dr. James Tanton says: "Here is a story that isn't true. When I was a young child I invented a machine (not true) that was nothing more than a series of boxes that could hold dots. And these dots would, upon certain actions, explode. And with this machine (in this non-true story) I realized that I could explain true things! I could explain all the mathematics of arithmetic I learnt in grade school (true), all the of the polynomial algebra I was to learn in high-school (true), elements of calculus and number theory I was to learn in university (true), and explore unanswered research questions mathematicians are studying today (also true)!" Come with pencil and paper in hand!
3:30-4:00 p.m. - "Impromptu Magic and Math: Learn Stunts to Dazzle your Friends and Family!"
Mark Mitton (Magician) and Dr. James Gardner (University of Oklahoma)
Magician Mark Mitton and educator Dr. James Gardner will teach you magic tricks, puzzles, and mathematical curiosities from the writings of the legendary Martin Gardner. Join us as they share secrets to feats that you can perform with everyday objects, anywhere and anytime! Playing with surprise is a great way to prepare for and consider the wonders of math. This is a dynamic workshop with lots of fun for the whole family.
4:00 - 5:00 p.m. - Stage Show featuring Mark Mitton, Magician
Mark Mitton is a professional magician who is fascinated by using magic to better understand how we see the world. In addition to performing at private and corporate events all over the world, and creating magic for film, television, the Broadway stage, and Cirque du Soleil, Mitton tirelessly explores the theme of ‘Misdirection’ from an interdisciplinary standpoint. He regularly presents on ‘Perception’ at universities and conferences in North America and Europe, including the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, and has lectured with the late Nobel laureate Dr. Gerald Edelman of The Neurosciences Institute. Mitton has performed at festivals in Europe and Asia; at the Olympic Games; in war-torn Liberia; in hospital wards around New York City; and in a Mexican orphanage. His magical hands are featured in a They Might Be Giants video.
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Parking & Transportation
To reach MSRI by public transit, take the AC Transit 65 Euclid/Lawrence Hall of Science bus route from near the Downtown Berkeley BART Station to Centennial Drive & Grizzly Peak Blvd or the Lawrence Hall of Science, and use the parking lot stairs to reach MSRI.
To reach MSRI by ride share service, use the address 17 Gauss Way, Berkeley, CA 94720.
For a map of available parking, click here. Limited free parking is available on weekends in the "MSRI Only Parking" lot level above the Lawrence Hall of Science parking lots (enter from Centennial Drive) - MSRI event permits to display on your dashboard will be available near the base of the stairs. Overflow fee-based parking is available in the Lawrence Hall of Science parking lots for a fee. A very limited number of handicapped parking spaces are available at the entrance to MSRI. Free parking may also be available on Grizzly Peak Blvd. **NEW: Parking in the Space Science Laboratory is by UC permit only, enforced 24/7. You may drop off guests who aren't able to use stairs at the building before proceeding to park in the MSRI lots or other parking!
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