2026 Session details

Sprouts, invented in 1967 by John Conway and Michael Paterson, is a paper-and-pencil game of topological strategy. In 2024 Grace Obaayaa Tweneboah, a teacher in Ghana, added a numerical component to give schoolchildren extra practice in arithmetic. The new game, Ghana Sprouts, now has variants at different levels of mathematical sophistication, requiring different types of strategic thinking.

The role of mathematicians in the dissemination of mathematics is fundamental to improve the public perception of mathematics. Real mathematics is intended to be a form of communicating mathematics in a way that makes both mathematics accessible and popular. It will also be explained the experience of disseminating mathematics in Spain by young mathematicians.

Meant for the polymath in all of us, for twelve years this game show has been a central part of our annual Math Day competitions at Franklin College. With categories like "Broadway Musical Numbers," "Incredible India," "Wordle Math Art," and, of course, "Punny Math," there is something for everyone in the competition. Whether you are a contestant on the show or an audience member cheering your champion to victory, "So You Think You Know Math?" is an exhilarating experience for everyone. In this talk, I will share the secret formula to its success, talk through some of the many categories we have used, and share a math pun or two on the way.

We will present our 10-year experience of engaging cohorts in an escape-room-style treasure hunts and problem solving games. The event requires participants to solve puzzles as they go around the rooms, corridors, and hidden nooks of our department. Along the way, we have participants engage with our in-house mathematical objects, including: beat us at 3D tic-tac-toe, find chalk paths on variants of the Bridges of Koningsberg, and solve the N-queens problems on different sized chess boards. The event is co-designed with our students. So the event not only makes our new students feel at home on campus, but also fosters inter-year connections. We want to share how we co-create the event with students, and how this can be adapted to other institutions.

Many college departments display or otherwise showcase their students’ creative work. However, in math departments, these displays are sometimes limited to research posters, which may not feel relatable or attainable to students in lower-level classes or to those who perceive their math skills as lacking. What happens to the attitudes of these students when their creative projects are put on public display as well? What sorts of math projects lend themselves to this strategy? Can such displays have an effect on math attitudes in the larger community?

I will present the approach behind a series of children's books that teaches foundational mathematical concepts to middle grade students through fantasy adventure stories. The first book, Funville Adventures, brings functions to life as magical beings with powers. It covers concepts like domains and ranges, function composition, invertibility vs. non-invertibility, and functionals. The second book, Modultown!, brings modular arithmetic to life in a world where characters are each driven by an inner modulus. It covers the mechanics of modular arithmetic, inverses, and the Chinese remainder theorem. This is a co-authored series with Alexandra Ovetsky Fradkin, published by Natural Math. The first book is already published, and the second is due to come out in May 2026.

How can you spark interest and curiosity in mathematics? As Martin Gardner suggests, “present an intriguing mathematical game, puzzle, magic trick, … [that some] tend to avoid because they seem frivolous.” That’s exactly what the St. Mary’s Math Competition qualifying problems did for me. Wanting others to have a similar sort of experience, I founded the Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival. Our first festival was hosted by Google in 2007. Since then, JRMF has hosted 1500+ events in over 30 states and on six continents. Guides with rich low floor/high ceiling activities are available free on JRMF.org. These activities often captivate those who already enjoy math, as well as those who discover that math can be fun. In this presentation, I will share a few of my favorite JRMF activities.

This Lightning Talk proposes a math exhibit built around celebrity “Easter eggs,” using familiar examples, like Taylor Swift’s hidden clues in lyrics, visuals, release schedules and social media. Celebrities often plant these clues deliberately, inviting fans to search for dates, numbers, repeating patterns, timelines and coded references, then piece them together to uncover meanings or make predictions. The exhibit treats this fan activity as a form of everyday problem-solving and shows how it connects to basic math ideas such as pattern recognition, counting, ordering and simple codes. By using familiar examples, the exhibit helps visitors realize the connections between math and the pop culture icons they love.

MathHappens Foundation has developed a Math Room concept that is hosted by 20 existing museums every Saturday and sometimes also Sundays. At the end of 2025 we have 19 and we will have more than 20 open every weekend in eighteen states by summer 2026. The special materials we select and make for the Math Rooms, the facilitators and our museum partners are all vital elements to our success. This talk will be an introduction to the MathHappens Math Room concept, our Open Play Kit program, and the Event Kits that we are successfully using in informal education spaces like Children's Museums, Science Museums and History Museums.

Surprise is a source for curiosity-driven learning. My paper, "School Mathematics Theorems - an Endless Source of Surprise," provides ample examples for realizing the surprise potential embedded in almost every mathematical result. In my talk, I would like to share how the planning team of the future Israel math museum prepares to expose surprising stories. For example: The story of tiling with identical pentagonal tiles, starting from the impossible tiling by a regular pentagon, and culminating in a finite number of (infinite) sets of options; The story of the Reuleaux triangle, one of infinitely many curves of constant width that seem to have a potential of replacing the rounded wheel, but after all, the latter has a unique advantage; More "dramath" stories, if time permits.

Magician Mark Mitton uses the structure of magic tricks to explore the emergence of intelligence in nature and compare it with artificial intelligence. Through live demonstrations of magic, he examines the gap between reality and perception, revealing how both the natural world and AI can challenge—and sometimes deceive—our understanding of what is truly happening.

This talk details the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of expanding from a small to a medium sized maths discovery centre, giving an update on MathsWorldUK’s progress since the last MATRIX x IMAGINARY conference. 2026 is a big year for MathsWorldUK, with the launch of the UK’s first “City of Maths”, with two years of mathematical programming in Leeds, Yorkshire; The first full year with two mathematics centres in the country; and a new monthly programme of museum lates. After looking back at the past two years, MathsWorld is excited to look forwards to the future, imagining what the landscape of mathematics museums will look like in 25 years’ time.

The Panamanian Foundation for the Promotion of Mathematics (FUNDAPROMAT) is a private non-profit Foundation based in the Republic of Panama whose mission is to change the world's perception so that one and all can experience mathematics as accessible, relevant and inherently joyous. In this lightning talk, Dr. Shakalli will briefly describe what we do in FUNDAPROMAT and share the math outreach resources that students, teachers and parents can download for free on our website fundapromat.org.

Inspired by Friedrich Froebel’s “Gifts” for learning through play, Tactile Truchet reimagines mathematical exploration as a multisensory, participatory design experience. The project features laser-cut wooden and 3D-printed tiles based on Truchet patterns, simple geometric units that generate complex relationships through repetition and symmetry. Each tile component is part of a tactile coded design system with three variations, enabling participants, regardless of visual ability, to design, problem solve, and visualize data through touch. In this talk, I will share the evolution of the project from concept to museum exhibit, highlighting how hands-on design connects geometry, creativity, and play.

Abstract algebra, especially the concept of finite groups, is often perceived as too abstract for secondary school students. How can we make these structures accessible and playful? In this lightning talk, I will present two hands-on tools developed to bridge this gap: (1) A 3D-printed model that allows students to physically explore symmetry groups. (2) A congruence class card game that gamifies the understanding of modular arithmetic. Both activities are part of the outreach program of the CRC 'Integral Structures', funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Quantum technologies often sound like you need a PhD and a strong coffee to understand. This talk flips the script, starting with things we all know: flipping coins, pointing arrows, and rotating shapes. Probability, vectors, matrices, and symmetry turn “quantum panic” into curiosity and confidence. Math becomes visual, physical, and fun, helping everyone engage with quantum tech without equations. As quantum shapes computing, communication, medicine, and climate solutions, public understanding is essential. Math isn’t a barrier, it’s the shortcut. The quantum future is coming anyway and mathematics just makes sure we’re invited, not intimidated.

We report on a visualization seminar for maths students and prospective teachers, co-organized with J. Richter-Gebert. The seminar was designed around the full-cycle workflow of creating mathematical visualizations, ranging from conceptual analysis of the topic, audience, and communicative goals, via concrete problem analysis, to both physical and digital realizations. We illustrate this workflow by selected student projects and emphasize the preparatory effort required to enable and support productive student work. This includes curated background material, concise introductions, initial visualization concepts, and code frameworks. The projects showed that, as in research visualization, successful results emerge only through iterative cycles of reasoning, modeling, design, and revision.

Lean in an interactive theorem prover, which is software that verifies mathematical proofs. Lean has allowed for large scale collaborations between mathematicians, the building of a formally verified mathematics library, and people to learn math using Lean.

For this lightning talk, I will give a brief overview of Lean, before going over how one can use Lean to either learn math themselves, or teach others math, all while having a bunch of fun doing so. Welcome to the future of math.

Olympiad mathematics is often viewed as a gated community—accessible only to a small, “gifted” elite. This talk presents a different vision: using elite mathematical problems as a source of deep, inclusive classroom culture. I will introduce the Math Olympiad Trainer Academy, a faculty-led initiative at NYU Abu Dhabi that works directly with high school teachers to reimagine Olympiad mathematics as a shared learning experience rather than a competitive filter.

How do you start a mathematics museum from scratch in a country that never had one? My answer was to start with people, not walls. Over more than a decade, through the research NGO Citizens in Power, I initiated proposals and formed consortia that connected mathematics museums and science-communication centres across Europe, many of them taking their first steps into EU collaboration and linked them with schools and lifelong learning centres. Together we co-created the exhibits and methods that became NiMATH, the Nicosia Mathematical Museum, now finding its permanent home in a historic municipal building, a former shadow theatre in the heart of Nicosia. This talk shares how a museum can grow out of a network, how a small space shapes the exhibits we design for it, and how this community can keep exchanging exhibits, methods and ideas.

Mathematical concepts can be understood in many different ways. Using movement arts, we explore a physical embodiment of Euclidean Geometry in a creative and abstract way. Performing arts has the goal of expressing an emotion or a story, which mathematics also does intrinsically. We combine these two art forms through the specific discipline of Cyr Wheel, a circus art utilizing a large metal ring and elastic cords to represent Euclidean Geometry to tell the story of a girl staying up late to read about her favorite subject.

The public wants to play with math, but so much depends on if we invite them the right way. This lightning talk will share the most practical lessons we’ve learned from running weekly hands-on math experiences with thousands of families across the country. Our facilitators are not math experts. Many are undergraduate students from all majors, but they excel because our training focuses on play first. Participants will learn what to say (and not say), how to make invitations irresistible, and how to support joyful discoveries without over-explaining. Leave with specific strategies you can use tomorrow to make math outreach more accessible, inviting, and fun.

Archimedean solids are highly symmetric polyhedra built from regular polygons. Their beauty is obvious, but grasping their structure can be daunting. In this talk, I show how to "derive" several Archimedean solids starting from a cube or dodecahedron. Using specially constructed polygons and rubber bands, pairs of hands pull apart antipodal faces as new forms emerge. The moment the solid appears is always delightful to the participants and audience alike. Students for example pull a dodecahedron into a rhombicosidodecahedron; with a further twist, they will reach the snub dodecahedron, revealing (and physically experiencing) chirality and the origin of the word "snub."

What if museums could personalise maths learning? We are developing interactive maths trails in museums that blend storytelling, hands-on activities, and mini-games with authentic exhibits. The innovative element is an adaptive tablet app: it will monitor pupils' emotional responses and cognitive performance, dynamically adjusting difficulty. When it detects maths anxiety, it will offer supportive scaffolding; when it senses confidence, it will introduce new challenges. Museums offer unique advantages: authentic contexts, engaging objects, and freedom from classroom anxiety. By leveraging existing museum resources, this model could be scalable across different contexts, exploring how technology-enhanced informal learning might transform primary pupils' relationship with mathematics.

The City of Jacksonville is on a mission to revitalize its downtown, bringing new initiatives and businesses that create diverse opportunities to host a wide variety of events. In this talk, I will discuss my Crocheting Mathematics exhibit in a lively downtown building that houses nonprofit organizations, as well as a Science of Crocheting Mathematics talk at a downtown brewery, which also serves as a popular event venue. I will also discuss visitors’ reactions and comments regarding this unconventional presentation of mathematics.

I will talk about the technique of topological crochet and explore its implications across mathematical art, mathematics education, and community building, highlighting how hands-on making can transform abstract concepts into shared creative experiences.

Poetry in the mathematics classroom can serve as a catalyst, not only for the enjoyment of math, but for a greater understanding of mathematical concepts. This brief presentation will touch on the use of poetry from elementary through graduate levels, involving such diverse aspects of mathematics as history, primes, set theory, and topology, with some specific examples of writing exercises and discussion topics. References for further exploration will be provided.

When two notes sound together, we instantly feel them as consonant or tense. In this 6-minute lightning talk I show that this feeling can be measured: consonance is linked to how strongly the two sound waves correlate over time. Simple frequency ratios (2:1, 3:2, 5:4) tend to align and correlate well, while more complex ratios correlate poorly, creating roughness and beating that we perceive as dissonance. Using a hands-on prototype, the Frequency Garden, a robust math–music exhibit for science centres, I let the audience hear intervals, see real-time correlation scores, and watch Lissajous curves reveal “how well two sounds fit” as geometry. The demo turns melody into numbers that quantify perception— and numbers into a concrete exhibit that makes mathematics perceptible.

Learn about MathsWorld London, a brand new discovery centre for mathematics that opened in October 2025! With over forty innovative exhibits and a packed programme of events, MathsWorld is a place to spark curiosity, ignite imagination, and see mathematics as you’ve never seen it before: fun, colourful, mind-blowing, and deeply connected to the world around us.

Video games play a big role in many people’s lives. As a teaching tool they can be easily integrated into people’s everyday life but can also be offered in contexts in which learning is already likely (e.g. schools, museums). Here, we present a project (Quantum Arcade) which presents core concepts of quantum computing in the form of two arcade games. Our aim is to investigate how effective such games are in communicating knowledge and further piquing interest in the topic at hand. We evaluate the two arcade games in the context of several science museums (e.g., Futurium Berlin, Phaeno Wolfsburg). Museum visitors are approached by one the researchers, they then get to freely pick one of the two games and complete a pre- and post-questionnaire.