Math Factory Working Group

The Math Factory Working Group convened on Monday, 2008 August 4, to kick off the process of creating an interactive museum of mathematics, which will be the only one of its kind in the United States. The museum has applied for a charter from the New York State Education Department, and will pursue the mission described in the Mission Statement. A Board of Trustees will serve as the governing body of the museum. The Working Group will continue to meet, and make recommendations to the Board and implement activities of the museum.

The next meeting of the Math Factory Working Group will be Wednesday, August 25, 2010 from 7 to 9:00 pm, in the Math department of SUNY Farmingdale. Please RSVP for the meeting; directions and dial-in information will be posted on the RSVP page.

All of our future meetings will be on dates determined by members on August 25. If you cannot attend one of our meetings but want to be involved in the discussion you can call and particpate. See the directions on the RSVP page for call-in participation:

The following materials are available to working group members:
Minutes of prior meetings, the Agenda of the upcoming meeting, an Archive of past Working Group newsletters, and certain additional Working Pages.

Committees

We currently have two committees:

Location chaired by Glen Whitney, tasked with seeking potential temporary or permanent physical locations for the Museum.

Math Midway Exhibition chaired by Cindy Lawrence, overseeing the math museum's traveling exhibition, the Math Midway.

Information

The Working Group is informally collecting the following information resources:

Exhibit Plans

A growing, creative, brainstorm-style list of possible exhibits/activities for the new musem

Quotes

Memorable quotes from mathematicians or other famous people that may be useful in museum literature or design

Case

Facts and statistics that make the case that we should create the Museum of Mathematics.

Careers

Career experiences with mathematics

Similar Institutions

Although there is no physical museum dedicated to mathematics in the US, there are such museums in other countries, and some institutions in the US with mathematical content.

Potential Partners

There are other organizations in the US whose missions are aligned with ours, and we should seek to partner with them to further our joint missions.

Projected Benefits

We need to document the societal benefits that our institution can offer.

Check out the NY Times, Sunday, Sept 7, 2009, the Long Island section. It has some very positive words to say about local museums. The article is attached to this webpage. See attachments below.

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