Some may remember it. Tangente's 20th anniversary was celebrated in 2007 at the town hall of Paris's 5th arrondissement. The founding of our magazine was retold via a song (see the complete lyrics on page 75 of issue 48 of the Bibliothèque Tangente special editions, devoted to the French ambassadors of mathematics). You will recognize the tune from its opening lines:
> "I am telling you of a time that those under 20 cannot know. > In those days, mathematics had lost the aura it perhaps deserved…"
An exceptional day at the Musée des arts et métiers -----------------------------------------------
The magazine's founding, often recounted, undoubtedly transformed the way mathematics is viewed in our country. But creating a magazine is one thing; keeping it going for thirty years is another challenge altogether—one that the team successfully met, even though there were difficult times.
The Tangente team decided to mark this latest milestone—another ten years—by thinking big. Some 6,000 people are expected at the Musée des arts et métiers in Paris on Sunday, December 3. The museum will be open to the public free of charge that day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. We thank its team for welcoming us and the public, and for enabling dozens of speakers and activity leaders to take turns at more than ten different venues, offering talks, lectures, games, workshops, competitions, rallies, book signings, art exhibitions, tours and commentary on the exhibits…
There will be something for everyone, whatever their age, level, background or profession… Readers of Tangente are of course welcome, and we guarantee them a wonderful time!
For a taste of the program—though it is far from exhaustive—follow this link. You can arrive at any time of day, but rest assured that if you are there from 10 a.m., you can stay until 6 p.m. without exhausting all the activities on offer.
Do not hesitate to travel from afar: it will be worth it. But bear in mind that another celebration will take place a few days later in Belgium, on December 8 and 9, at a Brussels theater where mathematics lectures and shows are planned (see the program in the box). Given the theater's capacity, online registration is required.
Activities tailored to every audience ---------------------------------------------------
Let's return to the day's program, which will be updated in real time on the Trophées Tangente website, though what you can find here is already far more than a preview.
Two distinctive features will mark the day.
• Activity lengths: apart from the one-hour "rallies" and the half-hour lectures (a very short time!), all other sessions will last fifteen minutes. This will give visitors a wide choice and allow them to make the most of the variety of activities on offer.
• Tailoring activities to the various audiences they are intended for: in the program, the intended participants for each activity are identified by age group with a letter (and groups may overlap):
A: High-school students and adults,
B: Roughly middle-school age (10–15),
C: Ages 7–12 (and their parents).
Thus, in most cases the same workshop will be offered at different times of day for each of the three audience groups and will appear in the program with the letter A, B or C. Some workshops will, of course, also be open to two or even all three groups and will be identified accordingly.
The rally for families through the museum, created with the help of the CIJM and modeled on the one held at the Culture et jeux mathématiques fair, will likewise be tailored to the children's ages, ranging from the "Discovery Rally" to the rally for "knowledgeable enthusiasts."
The "A" activities are generally intended for all high-school students and adults: the aim is to appeal to everyone, not just specialists in a particular area of mathematics. Some sessions, however, will be designed for specific audiences. Teachers, for example, are invited to a dedicated 90-minute meeting in the conference room at 12:30 p.m. The meeting is of course open to mathematics teachers, but also to teachers of physics, computer science and French, as well as school librarians.
Interdisciplinary work and the initiatives undertaken in this area by Tangente and the Club Tangente association, which is organizing the event (and the Trophées Tangente), will be central to this meeting.
A range of themes and venues ----------------------------------------
Besides being tailored to different audience groups, the activities will cover a wide range of fields, often with a close connection between their subject matter and the venue where they are held.
The first group of venues will host the day's highlights and talks (see box): the auditorium, where 30-minute events are scheduled—the opening and closing sessions, the prize-giving for the Affaire de logique competition organized by Tangente and the newspaper Le Monde, and lectures by renowned mathematics communicators—and the conference room, which will host the teachers' meeting as well as 15-minute "flash talks" in which speakers will present "mathematicians and mathematics communicators" through their biographies and a famous problem they solved.
A second group of venues (see box) will be devoted to "workshops": mental arithmetic, mathematical games, multiple-choice quizzes, magic tricks and board games. Renowned mathematics communicators will offer a wide variety of activities, with the same workshop generally repeated at several times during the day and adapted to three levels. At any given time, every audience group will find a suitable workshop in one of these venues.
A third group of venues will be dedicated to the cross-disciplinary connections that Tangente champions. Links between mathematics and other forms of expression will focus chiefly on the "visual arts," with exhibitions and artists who use mathematics in their work, and on "literature," with numerous book signings by the day's speakers and by the authors of books shortlisted for the Prix Tangente du livre and the Prix Tangente des lycéens.
Finally, for those who enjoy exploring, the Musée des arts et métiers and the CIJM will offer mathematical rallies and tours of the best-known instruments connected with mathematics (see box).
We hope many of you will make the trip, enjoy these marvelous activities and come meet the Tangente team, whether at the Musée des arts et métiers in Paris on December 3 or at the "Ateliers Jojo" in Brussels on December 8 and 9. You will not be disappointed! But if you live too far away, do not miss issue 179, in which several articles will cover material presented at the events. Above all, remember to spread the word about our magazine and encourage those around you to subscribe: you are its best ambassadors!