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Multidimensional

Math Awareness Week targets number-crunchers and the best

The UA mathematics department is hoping to integrate non-mathematicians with their number-crunching counterparts during the annual Math Awareness Week being held through Friday.

Chris Mikel, coordinator of the University of Arizona Math Center, said that while the department is expecting a bigger turnout than last year, they do not expect an exponential growth in attendance.

"We are hoping to have 50 to 100 people at each activity," Mikel said.

"General audience" friendly events are planned for the week-long celebration, with interactive activities occurring each day.

The theme for this year's awareness week is "Math Spans All Dimensions," which Mikel said was chosen to highlight the application of math in computers.

UA mathematics lecturer David T. Gay said this week is dedicated to informing people about the influences of math on people's lives.

"The point is to share what we think is exciting with people who don't think it is as interesting," Gay said. "When you're teaching calculus or algebra, it is hard to find time to convey that math is fun."

Gay and UA assistant professor Alain Goriely will give a talk Thursday on the math behind knots. At the lecture, Goriely is expected to explain why telephone cords get kinks.

On Wednesday, the Math Film Festival will feature classic math flicks and free popcorn, which the math department hopes will equal fun.

Math movies such as The Shape of Space and Hypercube, will be shown at the event.

"We are trying to generate interest in math and appreciation of its wide uses in society," Mikel said. "People don't always think of math as fun."

The Tucson Symphony String Quartet will increase the volume with an interactive math musical performance Thursday to parallel Daughters on Campus Day.

Events will end Friday with the announcement of the winner of the week-long Jujubee Counting Contest. Interested participants can guess the amount of Jujubees in a polyhedron - a finite collection of polygons pasted together along their edges to make a single closed figure in three-dimensional space - located in the Mathematics building through the end of the week.

The winner will take home the Jujubees and the container.

All of the planned events are free to the public, and coordinators guarantee them to be understandable for the mathematically-challenged.

Math Awareness Week was started in 1986, when President Ronald Reagan proclaimed the last week in April be set aside for expanding appreciation for the subject.

The UA has been holding the event since the early 1990s, with interest multiplying each year, Mikel said.