Conferences

This is a list of past and forthcoming conferences in math communication, recreational mathematics and affine topics.

Periodic conferences

Forthcoming conferences

ESMA Conference (European Society for Mathematics and the Arts) (Ljubljana, Slovenia, September 19 - 23, 2016)

The next ESMA conference will give the opportunity to have a new large exhibition. New artworks will be particularly welcomed. The main themes of the conference are:

Mathematical tools and software for the creation of artistic scientific visualizations.
Analysis of artistic/mathematical works from the mathematical/artistic point of view.
Pedagogical uses of scientific artistic works.

If you intend to show some of your work please inform the organizers ([1], [2]) as early as possible in order to prepare a catalogue in time. Contributors are invited to send a first abstract before January 30th, 2016, their full paper before June 15th, 2016, to any member of the scientific committee: ([3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]).

Bridges 2016 (Jyväskylä, Finland, August 9-13, 2016)

The Bridges Conference is the world’s largest interdisciplinary conference on mathematics and art. The annual meeting on 2016 will take place in Finland. The conference will feature presentations of full and short papers, hands-on workshops, invited talks, a juried art exhibition, a math/art short movie festival, a theater event, a music night, a mathematical poetry reading, a math/art excursion, a public day, and more. Papers will be published in the refereed conference proceedings.

Deadlines for submissions: Regular Papers: 1 February 2016, Workshop Papers: 1 March 2016, Short Papers: 15 March 2016, Artworks: between 15 February and 15 March 2016, Movies: between 15 April and 15 May 2016.

13th International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME13) (Hamburg, Germany, July 24 - 31, 2016)

The Society of Didactics of Mathematics (Gesellschaft für Didaktik der Mathematik - GDM) will host ICME-13 in 2016 in Germany, under the auspices of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI). The conference features a target group TSG7 on Popularisation of Maths. The call for submission of Papers and Posters is open from 1st Sept. to 1st Oct. 2015.

IMAGINARY Conference (Berlin, Germany, July 20-23, 2016)

At this stage of the IMAGINARY project (with 130 exhibitions in 30 countries and a big network and community), it is essential to gather all partners involved so far, together with new experts in the field of mathematical research, didactics, computer science, architecture, design, law, and media research to establish a comprehensive analysis of mathematics communication today and to develop new perspectives.

This conference will break the classical scheme of successive talks, and will propose a mixture of conventional talks together with parallel workshops, that aim to generate tangible outputs during the conference, with the active involvement of the participants. The workshops will address the following main topics:

A. Community, networking and legal aspects.
B. Advances in 2-d and 3-d visualization of modern mathematics, creation of mathematics exhibits.
C. Knowledge transfer and pedagogics of mathematics communication.
D. Agile design and tools for maths communication.
E. Mathematical writing, journalism and media.

Save the dates (July 20 to July 23, 2016). The IMAGINARY conference will run partly parallel to the 7ECM conference in Berlin and just before the ICME13 conference in Hamburg. More information on the above link and more to be announced soon.

Maths communication at the 7th European Congress of Mathematics (Berlin, Germany, July 18-22, 2016)

The cultural program of the conference include an IMAGINARY exhibition and a Math Film Festival.

Symmetry Festival 2016 (Vienna, Austria, July 2016)

TBA

Next Einstein Forum (Dakar, Senegal, March 2016)

A conference devoted to science education and communication in Africa.

The Science of Beauty (Edinburgh, United Kingdom, November 10-11, 2015)

This will be a two-day conference, drawn from the fields of mathematics, physics, philosophy and neuroscience, seeking answers to questions such as: What is common to the experience of beauty derived from sensory, cognitive and moral sources? What is the relationship between aesthetic judgment and aesthetic experience? And what is the grander biological significance of the experience of beauty? The conference was announced during the Heidelberg Laureate Forum 2014, by Michael Atiyah and Semir Zeki.

AIMS-IMAGINARY Workshop, Exhibition and Roadshow (M'Bour Thiès, Senegal, November 2-5, 2015)

This is the second edition of the AIMS-IMAGINARY Maths and Science Roadshow, Workshop and Exhibition, aimed to inspire and encourage the next generation of mathematicians and scientists in Africa. The event will consist on four different activities:

The AIMS-IMAGINARY Roadshow, displaying various visual and hands-on exhibits. This activity is aimed to school and university students and is guided by an expert.
Workshops, for discussion by interested participants wishing to share ideas and plan for future similar activities.
Exhibition at AIMS Senegal, aimed to a wider and general audience.
A Science Slam, where competing teams explain a science subject to an audience.

Math and Science communicators linked to the African continent are especially invited to participate.

Espace Mathématique Francophone (Algiers, Algeria, October 10-14, 2015)

The Espace Mathématique Francophone is a society devoted to the education in mathematics in the French-speaking world. It organizes scientific meetings every 3 years in French-speaking countries, being next year in Algeria. Amongst other didactic and pedagogic topics, the conference will feature a Special Project "Vulgarisation des mathématiques" that will expand 3 time slots for a total of 5h30m of working time of a reduced team in the subject.

Past conferences

MOVES 2015 (New York, United States, August 2-4, 2015)

MOVES (Mathematics Of Various Entertaining Subjects) is a conference on recreational mathematics organized by the National Museum of Mathematics (New York). This second edition of MOVES is devoted to combinatorial game theory, with key lectures from the mathematicians John Conway, Elwyn Berlekamp, and Richard Guy. The conference will feature dozens of talks on current research in recreational mathematics, as well as several mathematical activities. Papers building on work of Berlekamp, Conway and Guy are particularly encouraged for submission.

Bridges 2015 (Baltimore, USA, July 29 - August 1, 2015)

Bridges is the annual conference on Art and Mathematics, one of the most renowned meetings in the field. Bridges Baltimore 2015 will feature talks and artworks presenting the latest ideas in mathematics and the arts from experts around the world, including regular and short papers, invited talks, hands-on workshops, a Visual Art Exhibition, a Short Movie Festival, a Musical Event, a Theater Event, a Mathematical Poetry Event, a Giant Zometool Construction, and an excursion.

In the month prior to the start of Bridges, the Towson University Center for the Arts will be hosting an exhibition featuring a selection of works of mathematical art.

The conference is now open for submissions on new works on several categories: regular papers, workshop papers, short papers, artworks for the exhibition, and short movies. Check deadlines in the conference page.

Recreational mathematics IV (Lisbon, Portugal, January 24-27, 2015)

The Ludus Association, totgether with the Portuguese Mathematical Society, Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia (CIUHCT), and Ciência Viva, will organize the Recreational Mathematics Colloquium IV. This is part of a series of conferences under the umbrella of Gathering for Gardner (G4G). The event will take place at Pavilhão do Conhecimento.

The Colloquium will be a Show and Tell of bright pearls of Mathematics, with varied levels of sophistication, entertaining many audiences. Its main goal is to foster mathematical appreciation, an important step if we are to see improvements in the future generations.

Creative Mathematical Sciences Communication (Chennai, India, December 9-12, 2014)

This is a second in a conference series that explores new ways of helping students achieve 21st Century competencies in mathematics and computer science, which includes math activities across the curriculum. The first conference in the series, held in Charles Darwin University, Northern Territories, Australia, from August 2 to 8, 2013, saw a unique interaction between artists (theatre, dance, graphic arts) and mathematicians / math educators. Importantly, the conference aims to engage research mathematical scientists in outreach and communication. Bringing together researchers, educators and communicators committed to bringing exploration and discovery into classrooms and among the educated public, the conference hopes to explore new ways of thinking initiated by Computer Science Unplugged and other similar efforts in the 1990s.

Maths Communication in Africa (Cape Town, South Africa, November 5-7, 2014)

Organized by the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in South Africa and IMAGINARY. The objective of this conference is to exchange experiences in communicating mathematics internationally with a focus on the African continent as well as to plan concrete math outreach activities in various African countries.

MoSAIC mini-conference (Berkeley, United States, October 3-4, 2014)

MoSAIC is a collaborative effort sponsored and funded by MSRI (Mathematical Sciences Research Institute) and administered by the Bridges organization. MoSAIC consists on a series of interdisciplinary mini conferences and festivals on mathematical connections in science, art, industry, and culture, to be held in colleges and universities around the United States and abroad.

First mini-conference was held on 3-4 October at Berkeley City College in Berkeley, California. Several others to come soon.

MATRIX (Dresden, Germany, September 18-20, 2014)

MATRIX (Mathematics Awareness, Training, Resource, & Information Exchange) is organized by the Museum of Mathematics (New York) and Erlebnisland Mathematik (Dresden). It is aimed to representatives of math museums worldwide, and also to creators, designers and operators of math exhibits and other math outreach activities.

Mathematics Communication at ICM 2014 (Seoul, Korea, August 20, 2014)

Coinciding with the International Congress of Mathematicians ICM 2014, there are several math communication activities in Seoul and South Korea.

ICM Mathematics Popularization Day

This is a special open session at ICM concerning all aspects of mathematics education, from elementary school to higher education, mathematical literacy and popularization of mathematics. With lectures by Étienne Ghys, “The internet and the popularization of mathematics”, and Günter M. Ziegler, “Teaching and learning ‘What is mathematics’”. August 20, 15:00 at COEX, Seoul.

IMAGINARY Panel

This ICM panel consists of a mathematics vision slam titled “Mathematics communication for the future”, where professionals in the field of mathematics communication will present their visions for future mathematics communication. The panel will be introduced by Gert-Martin Greuel and the vision talks will be given by Cédric Villani, David Grünberg, Carla Cederbaum, and Hyungju Park. August 20, 15:00 at COEX, Seoul.

NIMS-IMAGINARY exhibition

During the ICM conference the NIMS-IMAGINARY exhibition will be on display at COEX, access is free for all visitors. This exhibition will be the largest exhibition of IMAGINARY so far, with the exhibits of “Through the eyes of mathematics”, “Mathematics of planet Earth” and some other exhibits contributed by the users of the IMAGINARY platform for this special occasion. The exhibition is organized by the National Institute of Mathematical Sciences (NIMS), South Korea.

Also, the Bridges 2014 conference takes place the same days in Gwacheon National Science Museum, Seoul.

Bridges 2014 (Seoul, Korea, August 14-19, 2014)

Bridges is the world’s largest interdisciplinary conference on Mathematics and Art. This year the conference takes place next to the ICM at Gwacheon National Science Museum, Seoul. The conference will feature presentations of full and short papers, hands-on workshops, inviteded talks, an art exhibition, a math/art short movie festival, a theratre night, a music night, a mathematical poetry reading, a math /art excusion, a family day, and more. From August 14 to August 19, 2014, at Gwacheon National Science Museum, Seoul.

Ecsite annual conference 2014 (The Hague, Netherlands, May 22-24, 2014)

Ecsite is the European Network of Science Centers and Museums. This is the largest gathering on Science Museums in Europe. On mathematics, there will be a session “Complex problems, simple math: Rich tasks for communicating Mathematics” from Centre for Life (Newcastle, UK), a poster session from MMACA (Barcelona, Spain) and a poster session from IMAGINARY (Oberwolfach, Germany).