Meeting with The Mathemagician - Arthur Benjamin

[Jason Soll]

Friends,

I have the privilege of spending some time with the world-famous Mathemagician, Arthur Benjamin, in a few days. Just found out that he works as a professor of mathematics here at my college lol. For those of you that don't know him, you can see his TED performance here: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/arthur_benjamin_does_mathemagic.html


Anything in particular that I should ask him about?

Best,

Jason

 

[James Smith]

You said he was a mathemagician...so...um...could you ask him to explain the quadratic formula. I'm doing that in school right now and it looks like hieroglyphics!

Just kidding.

Hope you have a good time.

 

[Dima]

Damn that was awesome...the final calculation was just immense.

 

[Deleted member 2755]

Just finished watching this. I was smiling in astonishment throughout. This is one of the more interesting things I've seen in a long time. He is insanely awesome!

I've got a question for him though. Why does he consider what he does magic? Sure everything he does is astonishing and amazes. However, is what he is doing really magic? Why does he call what he does magic when he seems to just be an amazing mathematician.

Wow.... This was AMAZING! Have fun meeting him. I envy you.

-Doug

 

[James Smith]

Just finished watching this. I was smiling in astonishment throughout. This is one of the more interesting things I've seen in a long time. He is insanely awesome!

I've got a question for him though. Why does he consider what he does magic? Sure everything he does is astonishing and amazes. However, is what he is doing really magic? Why does he call what he does magic when he seems to just be an amazing mathematician.

Wow.... This was AMAZING! Have fun meeting him. I envy you.

-Doug

Maybe he's not really that good at math, and he's using plants. So it sort of is magic.

 

[ajelsma]

what got u started

 

[r.zhang]

Just finished watching this. I was smiling in astonishment throughout. This is one of the more interesting things I've seen in a long time. He is insanely awesome!

I've got a question for him though. Why does he consider what he does magic? Sure everything he does is astonishing and amazes. However, is what he is doing really magic? Why does he call what he does magic when he seems to just be an amazing mathematician.

Wow.... This was AMAZING! Have fun meeting him. I envy you.

-Doug

It may not be magical in any form. But of course that's like saying how we can call what we do magic when we just seem to be great sleight of hand artists.

 

[mse&nc]

It may not be magical in any form. But of course that's like saying how we can call what we do magic when we just seem to be great sleight of hand artists.

But what we do still LOOKS like magic. There are no possible explanation.

 

[tally-ho]

oh well, he is still amazing at math.

 

[The Tumbleweed]

Awesome act, I loved it!

 

[shooting_rubber]

That was spectacular.

 

[349012a81294]

I would ask him why he was first interested in developing a mnemonic system in the first place - did he set out with the idea of performing on stage, or was math just something he liked and wanted to excel in?

If you use stacks, he could obviously give you advice on different ways to stack your deck, or mnemonic techniques to remember certain stacks.