When:
September 2, 2015 all-day
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Where:
National Museum of Mathematics
11 East 26th Street, New York, NY 10010
USA
11 East 26th Street, New York, NY 10010
USA

Math Encounters: How Fast Does It Grow? with Dick Gross
Wednesday, September 2, presentations at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.
At the NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MATHEMATICS
Scale a mathematical mountain known as the factorial with former Dean of Harvard College and Leverett Professor of Mathematics Benedict Gross. The factorial function, usually written n!, helps model innumerable different phenomena in the world around us, from the number of ways an election ballot can be filled out to the probabilities encountered in a game of poker. These wide-ranging applications lead people to want to know how quickly n! grows, and Professor Gross will take attendees on a historical journey, starting with Louis XIV revoking and Edict of Nantes, that will show how mathematics can illuminate such questions of which quantities ultimately grow the fastest. Free admission; registration required.