Monthly Math Hour
Math talks given by professional mathematicians from universities across the country, aimed at middle school and high school audiences.
Always free for everyone. No registration required.
The 2025 schedule for Monthly Math Hours is now posted below. As usual, there will be three talks, one each in March, April, and May.
2025 Math Hour Schedule
Join us this spring to learn about exciting topics in mathematics. All for free, no registration required.
Sunday, March 2, 2025: Counting stars
Speaker: Mark Saul, New York University Center for Mathematical Talent/Julia Robinson Math Festival
Where: Architecture Hall (ARC), Room 147, on the University of Washington-Seattle campus
When: Sunday, March 2, 2025 @ 1pm–2pm
How many eleven-pointed stars are there? How often does Christmas fall on a Tuesday? Can a power of two begin with the digit 7? Beginning with an examination of patterns on Native American ceramics, we will look at insights from number theory and analysis into periodic phenomena.
Sunday, April 20, 2025: Corners − edges + faces
Speaker: Agnes Beaudry, University of Colorado, Boulder
Where: Architecture Hall (ARC), Room 147, on the University of Washington-Seattle campus
When: Sunday, April 20, 2025 @ 1pm–2pm
More information will be available soon.
Sunday, May 18, 2025: Applications of symmetry
Speaker: Monica Vazirani, University of California, Davis
Where: Architecture Hall (ARC), Room 147, on the University of Washington-Seattle campus
When: Sunday, May 18, 2025 @ 1pm–2pm
If you want to count the number of tiles in your floor, you probably will not count each one individually, but be lazy and look for a shortcut. For instance, if the room is rectangular and walking part of its perimeter you discover there are 8 tiles along the north wall and 6 tiles along the west wall, you expect 48 tiles total. This shortcut employs the power of symmetry. (And a bit of algebra.)
In this talk, we’ll discuss a powerful counting method that is often referred to as Burnside’s Lemma, although it goes back to Frobenius (1887) and Cauchy (1845). This method uses symmetry and a bit more algebra. We will illustrate the lemma by counting necklaces strung with colored beads. Other applications include counting isomers of a given molecule, crystal structures, chords in a twelve-tone musical scale, Latin squares, and finite automata.
We’re super excited for this year’s lineup, and hope that you can share Monthly Math Hour with your friends, family, and school! We look forward to seeing you there!
Logistics
Each spring, Seattle-area students in grades 6–10 are invited to participate in the Monthly Math Hour at the University of Washington. We will explore all sorts of interesting mathematics, taught by professors from both UW and across the country. Well-behaved parents, teachers, and siblings are also welcome to attend, with the permission of their children.
The talks are one hour long and will generally occur on Sundays, once a month in the spring, and you are free to pick and choose which talks you want to attend. There will be time for questions and further discussion after the talks.
Registration is not required—just show up! And as always, the talks are free.
Parking at UW is free on Sundays. The closest lot will depend on the building we are using in any particular year, but you can find general information here . Alternatively, the UW campus is generally accessible by Link light rail and King County Metro buses.
Join our mailing list in order to get updates when the 2025 season of Monthly Math Hour begins!
Acknowledgements
The Monthly Math Hour at the University of Washington is supported by the NSF awards DMS-095-3011 and DMS-16000048 and the UW Department of Mathematics.