PULLMAN, Wash. – Acclaimed magician and mathematician Arthur Benjamin will perform his mind-boggling “Mathemagics” show at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 17, in the Jones Theatre in Daggy Hall at Washington State University. Admission is free. There will be a light refreshment reception and book signing following the show.
Benjamin is considered one of the world’s fastest “lightening calculators” – people who can perform mental math faster than using a calculator. He has performed his mixture of math and magic all over the world. He has been featured on the Today Show, CNN, the Colbert Report and National Public Radio.
His TED2005 presentation has been viewed nearly 4 million times.
A professor of mathematics at Harvey Mudd University in Claremont, Calif., Benjamin is passionate about math education and teaching math and mental agility in interesting ways to people of all ages. In 2012, he was selected as one of “America’s Best 300 Professors” by Princeton Review.
Entertaining and enlightening
During the high-energy hour-long Mathemagics show, Benjamin will demonstrate his extraordinary mental agility and teach the audience some of his tricks: how to figure out the day of the week for any day in history, memorize 100 digits of pi and multiply numbers in your head as fast as a calculator.
He also will speak on “Combinatorial Trigonometry (a method to DIE for)” at the Department of Mathematics colloquium at 3 p.m. Wednesday, April 18, in Neill 5W.
Benjamin’s visit is sponsored by the WSU Department of Mathematics with support from the Calvin and Jean Long Lecture fund.