National Museum of Mathematics

 

The National Museum of Mathematics  is a museum dedicated to mathematics in Manhattan, New York City. It opened on December 15, 2012.  It is the only museum dedicated to mathematics in North America, and features over thirty interactive exhibits. The mission of the museum is to "enhance public understanding and perception of mathematics". The museum is known for a special tricycle with square wheels, which operates smoothly on a catenary surface.

Exhibition programs

1 -  Math Midway is a traveling exhibition of math-based interactive displays. The exhibits include a square-wheeled tricycle that travels smoothly over an undulating cycloidal track; the Ring of Fire, which uses lasers to intersect three-dimensional objects with a two-dimensional plane to uncover interesting shapes; and an "organ function grinder" which allows users to create their own mathematical functions and see the results. After making its debut at the World Science Festival in 2009, Math Midway traveled the country, reaching more than a half million visitors. The Midway's schedule included stops in New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, California, New Jersey, Ohio, Maryland, Florida, Indiana, and Oregon. In 2016, the Math Midway exhibit was sold to the Science Centre Singapore.

2 - Math Midway 2 Go (MM2GO) is a spinoff of Math Midway. MM2GO includes six of the most popular Math Midway Exhibits. MM2GO began traveling to science festivals, schools, community centers, and libraries in the autumn of 2012.

3 - Math Encounters is a monthly speaker series presented by the Museum of Math and the Simons Foundation. The lectures initially took place at Baruch College in Manhattan on the first Wednesday of each month, but moved to MoMath's visitor center at 11 East 26th Street in March, 2013. Every month a different mathematician is invited to deliver a lecture. Lecturers have included Google's Director of Research Peter Norvig, journalist Paul Hoffman, and computer scientist Craig Kaplan. Examples of topics are "The Geometry of Origami", and "Mathematical Morsels from The Simpsons and Futurama". The lectures are meant to be accessible and engaging for high school students and adults. The first lecture occurred on March 3, 2011. Twenty unique lectures had been delivered as of December 2012.

4 - Family Fridays began in April 2014 and occur once a month. MoMath and Time Warner Cable launched the initiative to provide free mathematical opportunities to low-income families in the form of an event series with new activities and presentations each month. In 2017, the sponsorship was taken over by Two Sigma.