Answer by user141903 for Math talk for all ages
Good luck! I really like your first bullet idea. I would also add the amazing fact that Gödel proved that we cannot prove the consistency of mathematics - the 9-year-olds will get the weirdness of this...
View ArticleAnswer by RaphaelB4 for Math talk for all ages
This summer a friend of mine gives a very nice talk about the game Nim. This is fun, you can start challenging and playing a few games with the youngests. But it also contains the deep and impressive...
View ArticleAnswer by l3utterfly for Math talk for all ages
I always found the Collatz Conjecture to be both simple and fascinating (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collatz_conjecture)The operations are understandable to any 9 year old (who won a math...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Answer by Ethan Dlugie for Math talk for all ages
I'm fond of the little problem posed in the beginning of this Quanta article: take $n$ generic points on a circle and draw the complete graph between those points. Into how many regions do the edges...
View ArticleAnswer by user21820 for Math talk for all ages
You could try giving a talk in the spirit of Nets, Puzzles, and Postmen, which is a book targeted at the general audience without mathematical background, about graph theory and how it can be applied...
View ArticleAnswer by usul for Math talk for all ages
The talk can be entirely congratulatory, or it can contain a bit of actual mathematics ... any alternative suggestions?How about some history of mathematics?It could be structured around a few notable...
View ArticleAnswer by Pablo H for Math talk for all ages
I've been to quite a few of such talks (though most or all in the 12-to-18-year-old range). I feel and believe that a talk that just presents something nice (to a professional mathematician) is...
View ArticleAnswer by Alexander Schmeding for Math talk for all ages
I have given a talk to slightly older students, but the subject might be appropriate also to 9 year old students.The talk was about bodies of constant width. Obviously circles have the properties that...
View ArticleAnswer by Timothy Chow for Math talk for all ages
My inclination would be to convey that it's fun to be a professional mathematician.How many people in the world have a fun job that they love doing? Only a small percentage. I feel privileged to be in...
View ArticleAnswer by Mike Shulman for Math talk for all ages
Another possibility would be to talk about a few unsolved problems in mathematics. It's easy for kids to think of math as a "finished" edifice, compared to fields like biology and physics where we hear...
View ArticleAnswer by JoshuaZ for Math talk for all ages
Talk about some elementary number theory problems. Twin prime conjecture, infinitely many even perfect numbers, existence of odd perfect numbers. These are all ones which are simple enough.
View ArticleAnswer by Andreas Blass for Math talk for all ages
I like to show how the same mathematics shows up in very different contexts. A topic that I've used with quite varied audiences (though never with as much variation in a single audience as you have) is...
View ArticleAnswer by gidds for Math talk for all ages
Following on from Wlod AA's idea, there must be plenty more juicy morsels that can be understood (if not proved!) without much knowledge. For example:The Hairy Ball Theorem (“You can't comb a hairy...
View ArticleAnswer by Wlod AA for Math talk for all ages
I'd present a juicy morsel of mathematics, say -- the Euler characteristics theorem for $\ \mathbb S^2.\ $ I'd adopt a classic proof.Let $\ \mathbb S^2\ $ be divided into convex geodesic polyhedra, $\...
View ArticleMath talk for all ages
I've been asked to give a talk to the winners of a recent math competition. The talk can be entirely congratulatory, or it can contain a bit of actual mathematics. I'd prefer the latter. I'd also like...
View Article
