About

Talking Math With Your Friends (TMWYF) is a weekly virtual mathematics colloquium created to provide a replacement of sorts for mathematics departments' weekly colloquia during the COVID-19 shutdown of colleges and universities. You can read about us in MAA Focus.

The current organizing team is:

• Tien Chih, Montana State University-Billings

• T.J. Hitchman, University of Northern Iowa

• Brian Katz, CSU Long Beach

• Drew Lewis, University of South Alabama

• Kate Owens, College of Charleston

Organizers emeriti: Steven Clontz, University of South Alabama

Format

TMWYF began as an informal way to talk some math and make some friends during the 2020 coronavirus quarantine. As an entirely virtual talk series, the format is a little different than that of a formal in-person colloquium. We strive to have our talks be interactive and encourage speakers to have an interactive discussion with the audience of friends, rather than simply deliver a lecture to them. However, having a large number of people on a Zoom call talking at once is a recipe for chaos! So we have adopted the following format:

Each week, about 5 "featured friends" will be identified to engage in the verbal discussion (i.e. remain unmuted). All other friends (audience members) are requested to interact through the chat or intermittent unmuting; one of the moderators will monitor the chat and relay these questions to the speaker. Additionally, often a smaller group will hang around for a few minutes after the talk for a more informal chat.