Arts, Math, and Leisure.

Something strange and unusual is happening in Germany. Not a rare one-off thing, but a normal sort of hey-this-is-what-we do-here sort of thing: public math lectures.

The week I arrived at Max Planck I went to the Center for Advances Eurpoean Studies and Reasearch (CAESAR…now that my friends is an acronym) in Bonn to see Don Zagier give a public lecture on the magical properties of modular forms and his recent work with black holes. It was really a beautiful lecture, and the hall was packed with the good citizens of Bonn curious to hear the state of the art in mock modular forms.

Then a few months later, I found myself at M^3, a multimedia show by topologist Matthias Kreck wherein he played the cello, exhibited mathematical art from Luitgard Ilg, and presented Zagier's famous one-sentence proof of Fermat's Two-Square Theorem. Again, to a venue jam-packed with people of all ages and seemingly all walks of life.

And then finally, last night, in the mother of all public math events, I attended the Mathematical Salon at the Hausdorff Institute in Bonn. The evening began with a piano performance by analytic number theorist Valentine Blomer, playing selected movements from Bach and Schubert. This was followed by a lecture from his Doktorvater, Jörg Brüdern, about the history and evolution of the proof in mathematics. And ended with wine and the exchange of high-minded ideals in the adjacent parlor. Now, this all makes it sound much fancier than it actually was, but again, I stress, the room was at capacity. The draw to drink wine and learn about mathematics on a Thursday evening was so strong.

So now I am totally mystified. Never in my 29 years had I ever been to -- or even heard of -- a public math event. Until now. And I'm not sure if German's are just so keyed up about mock modular forms, of it it has something to do with the relative density of award winning mathematicians in Bonn, but something is happening here, and I like it. Could such a thing work in, say, Pittsburgh? Or have we in America let our math hatred rage so out of control that we can't even enjoy it as a passing amusement?

I'm not sure what to do about this. First I guess I need to think about it for a few months, and then I'll probably have to start looking for money. Or at least someone with a mansion they'd like to loan out for a good cause. I just don't know, what do you think?

Oh, and Happy Birthday Maria Agnesi.

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