At the University of Northern Colorado, our Celebration of Mind event took place on the evening of October 17, 2018, with a guest lecture by Professor Jennifer Quinn of the University of Washington, Tacoma: “Epic Math Battles: Counting vs. Matching.”  She used an interactive “game show” format to present a variety of beautiful combinatorial identities, and ways to prove them via bijections or involutions. The audience participated enthusiastically, and at the end, voted “The Countess,” representing bijective proof, as the winner over “Sir Match-A-Lot,” representing involutions.  Students also enjoyed meeting informally with Professor Quinn to discuss academic and career paths, and other aspects of mathematical life.

The festival following the talk was also greatly enjoyed.  Students from UNC’s Math Club organized tables of mathematical puzzles, games, card tricks, and activities, illustrating concepts in geometry, number theory, combinatorics, and other areas of mathematics not generally familiar to the public.  There was also a demonstration of the Zometools geometric construction set, and our traditional contest to estimate the volume of a pumpkin (in units of sugar cubes).

This year’s event was our best-attended ever.  We had exactly 100 people at the talk (the maximum capacity of the room) and 164 attended the more casual festival event.  This substantially exceeded our expectations, and next year, we will plan a larger space for the lecture.