68th School of Illustrative Mathematics
From 22 to 25 August, The 68th School of Illustrative Mathematics (Pol. Szkoła Matematyki Poglądowej, SMP) organised by the Centre for Mathematical Culture took place, this year in collaboration with the Silesian University of Technology. The Foundation of Wrocław Mathematicians is also a co-organizer of the SMP. This year's theme was "There is not always an answer at the end". We had the pleasure of welcoming outstanding mathematicians, students, and science enthusiasts from all over Poland.
The School of Illustrative Mathematics is an event dedicated to promoting mathematical culture. The conference was attended by over 90 participants. The opening of the School was attended by several dignitaries, including Vice Rector for Infrastructure and Investment, prof. Zbigniew Paszenda, PhD, DSc and the Dean of the Faculty of Applied Mathematics of the Silesian University of Technology, prof. Marcin Woźniak, PhD, DSc
The event traditionally began with the awarding of the Filc Medal, a special prize for the best presentation delivered during the previous edition, accompanied by a lecture from the laureate, Professor Jarosław Grytczuk. In this year’s Best Lecture competition, Professor Zbigniew Marciniak won with his presentation, “Every student knows that there is no formula for the integral of e−x². Do they get the answer by the end of their studies?”.
Participants also took part in the opening of the exhibition of works by Agnieszka Cioch, “Undetermined Games,” which combines mathematics and art. Over the following days, 20 lectures were held at the SUT Education and Congress Centre along with numerous mathematics-related activities, including the city game "Chrobra Matma".
Another item on the programme was the opening of an exhibition of posters created by the conference participants. The event took place in the Library of the Silesian University of Technology. The main prize for the best poster was awarded to Zuzanna Grabarz.
“The poster presented the Hadwiger–Nelson problem, which is an open problem concerning the chromatic number of the plane – the smallest number of colours needed to colour the plane so that no two points at a distance of 1 from each other are the same colour,” explained MSc. Zuzanna Grabarz, assistant at the Faculty of Applied Mathematics, SUT.
The event was held under the patronage of the Rector of the Silesian University of Technology, the Mayor of Gliwice, the Dean of the Faculty of Applied Mathematics of the Silesian University of Technology, the Director of the Silesian University of Technology Library, the Rector of the University of Warsaw, the Rector of the Warsaw University of Technology, the President of the Polish Mathematical Society, the Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at Adam Mickiewicz University.
The 69th edition of the School of Illustrative Mathematics will be held next year in Gliwice as well.
Photos: courtesy of the organizers’ archive, Łukasz Błaszczyk
