Stand-up Math: Using Performance to Engage People with Mathematics

Matt Parker
6:30 p.m. - December 12, 2018

MAA Carriage House

1781 Church St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20036

Please click here to RSVP for the lecture.

Abstract:
Mathematics is full of fascinating patterns and surprise results. As well as offering insights into the world around us. But yet many people consider math to be boring, tedious, both, or worse. This is normally rooted in a memory of their time being forced to learn math at school. So how can mathematicians present the subject they love so that other people will enjoy it as much as they do? Matt will demonstrate some of his favourite bits of mathematics and talk about how he uses stand-up comedy to engage people in math.

Matt has toured worldwide doing comedy shows which are actually math lectures in disguise. He is the first person to use an overhead projector on-stage at the Hammersmith Apollo since Pink Floyd. Somehow a subject people claim to hate is proving to be a crowd pleaser.

Biography:
Matt Parker is a stand-up comedian and mathematician. He appears regularly on TV and online: as well as being a presenter on the Discovery Channel his YouTube videos have been viewed over 37 million times. Previously a high-school math teacher, Matt visits schools to talk to students about math as part of Think Maths and he is involved in the Maths Inspiration shows. In his remaining free time, Matt wrote the books Things To Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension and Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors. He is also the Public Engagement in Mathematics Fellow at Queen Mary University of London.