Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Math Toys, Much Enjoyed!

Last week, I attended a free public talk at the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) here in Boston.  This is a wonderful public outreach concept which too few conferences sport.  The speaker, Tadashi Tokieda of University of Cambridge, illustrated a number of fascinating phenomena which can be demonstrated with simple toys or household objects.  Tokieda didn't lecture from a bunch of slides; most of the talk was in the form of live demonstrations -- and demonstrations made with overt glee!  There's a Storify of the entire meeting, in which mine and others of the Tokieda talk can be found.