2018-19 August Immersion
Our summer immersion will take place Thursday, August 16, 8:00am-5:00pm at Wayne RESA (Annex Building).
2018-19 School-year Program
Each month there is both a Tuesday Circle and a Saturday Circle Participants elect to primarily attend one or the other. During the school year the Wayne County Math Circle will meet in: September, October, November, January, February, March, April, & May.
To sign up for both the immersion and monthly school-year meetings, use the online application.
These sessions are lead by mathematicians and consist of collaborative work on open-ended, exploratory math problems and using those experiences to think about problem-solving in the classroom.
Tuesday Circle:
- 3rd Tuesday of each month (2nd Tuesday in November)
- Time: 4:30pm – 7:30pm
- Location: Wayne RESA, 33500 Van Born Rd, Wayne. Map
- Dates: 9/18/18, 10/16/18, 11/13/18, 1/15/19,
2/19/19, 3/19/19, 4/16/19, 5/21/19
Saturday Circle:
- Saturday following Tuesday Circle
- Time: 9am – 12pm
- Location: Room 261 in the Crane Liberal Arts Building, Washtenaw Community College. See building labeled LA and parking labeled PS on this map. Parking structure (free) connects to Crane Liberal Arts Building on the second floor.
- Dates: 9/22/18, 10/20/18, 11/17/18, 1/19/19,
2/23/19, 3/23/19, 4/20/19, 5/25/19
Schedule:
Tuesday & Saturday, September 18 & 22, 2018
Session Leader: Patrick Boland
Title: Taxi Cab Geometry – How I Learned to Stop Worrying about the DIAG
Tuesday & Saturday, October 16 & 20, 2018
Session Leader: Carolyn Norton
Title: Last Man Standing
Abstract: This week, we’ll explore a couple of classic math puzzles. If all goes well, we’ll also learn about an obscure connection between color televisions and fake Indian folklore.
Tuesday & Saturday, November 13 & 17, 2018
Session Leader: Yunus Zeytuncu
Title: Dynamical Systems, Orbits, and Fractals
Abstract: We will learn more about dynamical systems in two separate contexts. In the first one, we will play a candy sharing game and investigate different orbits. In the second part, we will look at sandpiles and talk about self-similar sets.
No December Meeting
Tuesday & Saturday, January 15 & 19, 2019
Session Leader: Nina White
Title: Pentagonal Tilings: getting our hands on some cutting edge math
Abstract: Tilings of the plane are a rich space for geometric thinking and problem solving. Mathematicians have wondered for over a century how many different families of pentagons there are that can tile the plane. In 2015, the 15th such pentagon was found. And in 2017 a mathematician claimed to have a proof that there were no more such pentagons (the proof is still being checked). In this session we’ll start with triangles and quadrilaterals, then get our hands on some of these pentagons and figure out what makes them work. (Interesting tidbit: it was an amateur mathematician, Marjorie Rice, who found four new pentagons to add to the list in 1977 after reading about them in an article by Martin Gardner in Scientific American.)
Resources
- Covington, Judith. Tiling with Pentagons. MTCircular, Apring 2018. (File and references below are those collected by Dr. Covington for her article!)
- Pentagonal Tiles for activity. (Word file)
- Bello, Alex. Attack on the pentagon results in discovery of new mathematical tile. The Guardian, 11 Aug 2015.
- Wolchover, Natalie. Marjorie Rice’s Secret Pentagons. Quanta Magazine, 11 Jul 2017.
- Wolchover, Natalie. Pentagon Tiling Proof Solves Century-Old Math Problem. Quanta Magazine, 11 Jul 2017.
- Wikipedia entry on Pentagonal Tilings
Tuesday & Saturday, February 19 & 23, 2019
Session Leader: Sarah Koch
Title: A new way to combine numbers
Abstract: For Valentine’s Day, your significant other decides to give you a number machine instead of flowers or chocolate (??). Your number machine takes two integers, combines them in an unusual way, and returns the result. In this session, we’ll study this new way to combine numbers, centering our discussion around a number machine challenge for the whole group. (We will also have some Valentine’s Day chocolate 🙂 )
If time allows, we will do some fun mathematical puzzles inspired by math teacher Ben Orlin, who will be visiting the University of Michigan in April. He will give a Public Talk, (which is going to be great!), on April 3, at 5:30pm, in room 1324 of East Hall in Ann Arbor – all are welcome!
Tuesday & Saturday, March 19 & 23, 2019
Session Leader: Stephen DeBacker
Title: TBA
Tuesday & Saturday, April 16 & 20, 2019
Session Leader: Carolyn Norton
Title: TBA
Tuesday & Saturday, May 21 & 25, 2019
Session Leader: Hanna Bennett
Title: TBA