1) I'm hosting a Martin Gardner party at a loft in San Francisco (SOMA neighborhood, and walkable from the Caltrain terminus at 6th & King) the evening of Thu Oct 21. Please send me email if you're possibly interested in coming. See also this site, which describes the locations of other (worldwide!) Martin Gardner parties to be held at the same time http://www.g4g-com.org/ 2) Terence Tao is giving interesting-sounding lecture(s) at Stanford in two weeks http://math.stanford.edu ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: <spk@math.stanford.edu> To: <announce@math.stanford.edu> Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2010 14:26:22 -0700 Subject: Special Math talk at Stanford: Professor Terence Tao, UCLA Dear friends and colleagues, I am writing to invite you to a public lecture at Stanford University by Professor Terence Tao entitled “The Cosmic Distance Ladder.” The lecture will be given at 7:30 pm on Wednesday October 6th, 2010 in Cubberley Auditorium on the Stanford campus. Details about the lecture can be found in the attachment to this email. Terence Tao, professor of mathematics at the UCLA, was awarded the Fields Medal in 2006, the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize. A native of Australia, Tao is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Salem Prize, the Bôcher Prize, the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize, the Clay Research Award, the Nemmers Prize, and, in 2010, the Pólya Prize. In the citation for Tao's Fields Medal, the selection committee wrote: “Terence Tao is a supreme problem-solver whose spectacular work has had an impact across several mathematical areas. He combines sheer technical power, an other-worldly ingenuity for hitting upon new ideas, and a startlingly natural point of view...” Professor Tao’s lecture is part of a series of events sponsored by the Department of Mathematics. It is free and open to the public. We hope you will join us. Parking at Stanford is unrestricted and plentiful after 4:00pm. The following searchable campus map may be of use in planning your visit. http://campus-map.stanford.edu/index.cfm?=03-300 Professor Tao will also be giving the Bergman Lectures in the Mathematics Department on October 5th and 7th. These lectures are intended for a general mathematics audience. Details can be found on the Department’s webpage at http://math.stanford.edu/ If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at cahill@math.stanford.edu or (650) 723-2602. Sincerely yours, Steve Kerckhoff, Chair Department of Mathematics Stanford University -- Thane Plambeck tplambeck@gmail.com http://thaneplambeck.typepad.com/