A math conference held in Bellevue College Feb. 24 was attended by many students from western Washington community colleges that are majoring in applied math, such as engineering or other science major or for students who are interested in learning math.

It was a big chance for students and professors to explore things to do that relates to math field. Nowadays, math is getting more widespread, especially in government or other organization jobs.

Before attending the conference, everybody got a folder, pen, small note, schedule paper and books that explained about math research. The audience could choose from different  topic they wanted to listen to, with every presentation lasting about 20 minutes, including audience questions.

Students from a variety of math departments at local colleges and Pacific Lutheran University advisor Tom Edgar gave presentations. Topics depended on what they did in research.

A popular choice lecture was by Joshua Mauer from Bellevue College. He gave a presentation about mathematical beauty. “Everybody has different way to solve math problem. This is why math is elegant; beauty in method, beauty in experience; beauty in philosophy,” he said.

Mauer ended his presentation with quotes from Bertrand Russel, a British philosopher and mathematician. “There are various ways of shared universal beauty. Beauty can be true in certain way,” he said, explaining that Russel’s quotes relate to how people think about math in different perspectives.

Edgar’s presented how to play with numeration, saying there is no numeration without representation. He put forward the history of a classic problem that was created by Flavius Josephus, a Jewish scholar and historian, then let the audience think about how to solve his problem.

Edgar related Flavius’ problem with binary representation that computer scientist usually applies to their programming language. Acomplicated topic, Edgar used humor to explain his topic.

Door prizes were given to all attendees, including the speakers. Prizes included Rubiks cubes, books, Amazon gift cards, small whiteboards, among other gifts. Four students from Pierce College got a prize, including Terry Zhou.

“I will use this board to do my math problem”, said Zhou, about his small whiteboard.