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 2026 Math Hour schedule is now available! More details coming soon.
2026 Schedule
Sunday, March 8, 2026: Solving Mathematical Mysteries
Speaker: Jenny Quinn, Seattle Universal Math Museum and UW Tacoma
Where: TBA
When: Sunday, March 8, 2026 @ 1pm–2pm
Much as mysteries in fiction consider evidence, find common patterns, and draw logical conclusions to solve crimes, mathematical mysteries are unlocked using the same tools. This talk exposes secrets behind a numerical magic trick, a geometric puzzle, and an unknown quantity to find a fascinating pattern with connections to art, architecture, and nature.
Sunday, April 26, 2026: Gridlocked: Taxicab Geometry and Voronoi Diagrams
Speaker: Maddie Weinstein, University of Puget Sound
Where: TBA
When: Sunday, April 26, 2026 @ 1pm–2pm
Euclidean geometry assumes that the shortest path between two points is a straight line — but city dwellers know that sometimes buildings get in the way. We will explore taxicab geometry, where travel is restricted to a grid and four is the equivalent of pi, alongside a dog from Euclidland named Pumpkin Pi and his gridlocked companion Pumpkin Four. We will also investigate Voronoi diagrams—ways of dividing space by the shortest distance to given sites— in Euclidean and taxicab geometry and see how this idea was relevant to identifying the source of a cholera outbreak in London in 1854.
Sunday, May 17, 2026: Piotr Pstragowski, University of Washington
Speaker: Piotr Pstragowski, University of Washington
Where: TBA
When: Sunday, May 17, 2026 @ 1pm–2pm
More details coming soon!
Sunday, November 22, 2026: Pavel Etingof, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2025 Special Autumn Math Hour
Join us this November for a special UW Math Hour event by Pavel Etingof. All for free, no registration required.
Speaker: Pavel Etingof , Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Where: TBA
When: Sunday, November 22, 2026 @ 1pm–2pm
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 2026 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.