Madison Math Circle

For the site in Spanish, visit Math Circle de Madison

What is a Math Circle?

The Madison Math Circle is a weekly series of mathematically based activities aimed at interested middle school and high school students. It is an outreach program organized by the UW Math Department. Our goal is to provide a taste of exciting ideas in math and science. In the past we've had talks about plasma and weather in outer space, video game graphics, and encryption. In the sessions, students (and parents) are often asked to explore problems on their own, with the presenter facilitating a discussion. The talks are independent of one another, so new students are welcome at any point.

The level of the audience varies quite widely, including a mix of middle school and high school students, and the speakers generally address this by considering subjects that will be interesting for a wide range of students.

After each talk we'll have pizza provided by the Mathematics Department, and students will have an opportunity to mingle and chat with the speaker and with other participants, to ask questions about some of the topics that have been discussed, and also about college, careers in science, etc.

The Madison Math circle was featured in Wisconsin State Journal: check it out!

All right, I want to come!

We have a weekly meeting, Monday at 6pm in 3255 Helen C White Library, during the school year. New students are welcome at any point! There is no fee and the talks are independent of one another, so you can just show up any week, but we ask all participants to take a moment to register by following the link below:

Math Circle Registration Form

All of your information is kept private, and is only used by the Madison Math Circle organizer to help run the Circle.

If you are a student, we hope you will tell other interested students about these talks, and speak with your parents or with your teacher about organizing a car pool to the UW campus. If you are a parent or a teacher, we hope you'll tell your students about these talks and organize a car pool to the UW (all talks take place in 3255 Helen C White Library, on the UW-Madison campus, right next to the Memorial Union).

Directions and parking

Our meetings are held on the 3rd floor of Helen C. White Hall in room 3255.

Parking. Parking on campus is rather limited. Here is as list of some options:

• There is a parking garage in the basement of Helen C. White, with an hourly rate. Enter from Park Street.
• A 0.5 mile walk to Helen C. White Hall via these directions, many spots (free starting 4:30pm) in Lot 26 along Observatory Drive.
• A 0.3 mile walk to Helen C. White Hall via these directions, many spots (free starting 4:30pm) in Lot 34.
• A 0.3 mile walk to Helen C. White Hall via these directions, 2 metered spots (25 minute max) in front of Lathrop Hall.
• A 0.2 mile walk to Helen C. White Hall via these directions 6 metered spots (25 minute max) around the loop in front of Chadbourne Hall .
• For more information, see the UW-Madison Parking Info website.

Email list

The best way to keep up to date with the what is going is by signing up for our email list. Send an empty email to join-mathcircle@lists.wisc.edu

Contact the organizers

The Madison Math Circle is organized by a group of professors and graduate students from the Department of Mathematics at the UW-Madison. If you have any questions, suggestions for topics, or so on, just email the organizers here. We are always interested in feedback!

• 

  Prof. Daniel Erman

• 

  Prof. Betsy Stovall

• 

  Juliette Bruce

• 

  Eva Elduque

• 

  Ryan Julian

• 

  Soumya Sankar

Donations

Please consider donating to the Madison Math Circle. As noted in our annual report, our main costs consist of pizza and occasional supplies for the speakers. So far our costs have been covered by donations from the UW Mathematics Department as well as a generous gifts from a private donor. But our costs are rising, primarily because this year we expect to hold more meetings than in any previous year. In fact, this year, we expect to spend at least $2500 on pizza and supplies alone.

So please consider donating to support your math circle! The easiest way to donate is to go to the link:

Online Donation Link

There are instructions on that page for donating to the Math Department. Be sure and add a Gift Note saying that the donation is intended for the "Madison Math Circle"! The money goes into the Mathematics Department Annual Fund and is routed through the University of Wisconsin Foundation, which is convenient for record-keeping, etc.

Alternately, you can bring a check to one of the Math Circle Meetings. If you write a check, be sure to make it payable to the "WFAA" and add the note "Math Circle Donation" on the check.

Or you can just pay in cash, and we'll give you a receipt.

Help us grow!

If you like Math Circle, please help us continue to grow! Students, parents, and teachers can help by:

• Posting our flyer at schools or anywhere that might have interested students
• Discussing the Math Circle with students, parents, teachers, administrators, and others
• Making an announcement about Math Circle at PTO meetings
• Donating to Math Circle

Contact the organizers if you have questions or your own ideas about how to help out.

Meetings for Fall 2017 and Spring 2018

Unless specified talks start at 6pm in room 3255 of Helen C. White Library, unless otherwise noted.

Fall 2017
Date	Speaker	Topic
September 18, 2017	Daniel Erman	Welcome to the Madison Math Circle!
September 25, 2017	Betsy Stovall	Math is a game!
October 2, 2017	Rachel Davis	Thinking outside the box
October 9, 2017	Solly Parenti	Hackenbush
October 16, 2017	Mihaela Ifrim	Escape of the Clones!
October 23, 2017	Ryan Julian	Recursion for Fun and Profit
October 30, 2017	John Wiltshire-Gordon	Euler Characteristic
November 6, 2017	Wanlin Li	How to Outsmart a State Test?
November 13, 2017	Jean-Luc Thiffeault	Goldbug Variations
November 20, 2017	Ethan Beihl	Boomerang Sequences
Spring 2018
Date	Speaker	Topic
January 29, 2018	No Meeting - Cancelled
February 5, 2018	Ben Wright	Mobius Band Magic
February 12, 2018	Daniel Erman	[1]
February 19, 2018	Brandon Boggess	Towers of Hanoi
February 26, 2018	Becky Eastham	No Pigeons Will Be Harmed During This Talk
March 5, 2018	Juliette Bruce	Doodling Dreams
March 12, 2018	Solly Parenti	Tangled up in Two
March 19, 2018	Edwin Baeza	Mathematics and Sound Design
March 26, 2018	No Meeting - (Spring Break)
April 2, 2018	Carrie Chen	Help! Important data lost due to ink stains!
April 9, 2018	Betsy Stovall Daniel Erman Juliette Bruce	Mini Math Circles End of Year Celebration!!!

Off-Site Meetings

We will hold some Math Circle meetings at local high schools on early release days. Our schedule for 2017-2018 has not yet been determined. If you are interesting in having us come to your high school, please contact us!

Fall 2017
Date	Time	Location	Speaker	Topic
October 2nd	2:45pm	East High School - Madison, WI	Moisés Herradón	How to make it as a Hackenbush player in the planet Zubenelgenubi 4
November 2nd	9:30am	Wisconsin Institute for Discovery - Madison, WI	Alisha Zachariah	Fractals, Fractions and Fibonnaci.
November 2nd (Canceled)	11:00am	Wisconsin Institute for Discovery - Madison, WI	Zach Charles	1+1 = 10 or "How does my computer do anything?"
November 2nd	6:00pm	Whitewater High School - Whitewater, WI	Juliette Bruce	Doodling Daydreams
November 3rd	10:30am	KM Global - Wales, WI	Betsy Stovall	Recent discoveries in mathematics
November 27th	2:45pm	JMM High School - Madison, WI	Juliette Bruce	Is any knot not the unknot?
December 11th	2:45pm	East High School - Madison, WI	John Wiltshire-Gordon	What if seven is zero?
Spring 2018
Date	Time	Location	Speaker	Topic
February 19th	2:45pm	East High School - Madison, WI	Jordan Ellenberg	Is math destroying the right to vote?
March 1st	9:30am	Wisconsin Institute for Discovery - Madison, WI	Wanlin Li	From Patterns to Functions?
March 1st	10:45am	Wisconsin Institute for Discovery - Madison, WI	Daniel Erman	What does math research look like?
March 5th	2:45pm	JMM High School - Madison, WI	Zach Charles	1+1 = 10 or "How does my computer do anything?"
March 19th	2:45pm	East High School - Madison, WI	Phil Wood	The Mathematics of Winning Strategies
April 30th	2:45pm	JMM High School - Madison, WI	TBD	TBD

Useful Resources

Annual Reports

2013-2014 Annual Report

Archived Abstracts

2016 - 2017 Math Circle Page

2016 - 2017 Abstracts

2015 - 2016 Math Circle Page

2015 - 2016 Math Circle Page (Spanish)

2015 - 2015 Abstracts

Archived Math Circle Material

Link for presenters (in progress)

Advice For Math Circle Presenters

Sample Lesson Plans

"Circle in a Box"