Pi Mu Epsilon, the national mathematics honor society, hosted award-winning mathematician and professional mime Dr. Tim Chartier of Davidson College on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2013.
A total of 76 Elon students, faculty, staff and friends attended the 75-minute event, which was delivered in two acts.
During the first part, Chartier explained his mathematical research on rankings. This included a discussion of his research on Twitter rankings as well as his research on sports rankings as applied to the NCAA’s March Madness basketball tournament.
Audiences were particularly impressed with the success of Chartier’s students in bracket tournaments associated to March Madness. Last year (2012), they ranked in the 99th percentile out of more than five million entries in ESPN’s Tournament Challenge.
The second portion of Chartier’s talk featured snippets of his world-renowned Mime-matics show, which explores mathematical concepts through the art of mime. Not only did Chartier adroitly perform his mime movements, he also took time to teach the audience several foundational mime skills, including how to execute the famous “mime in a box” routine. The picture below shows some of the audience exploring the “ceiling” of their box.
Additionally, one lucky student won the advertised door prize. The $25 Visa Gift Card went to Gabriela Citrone ’17.
The event was a huge success, and was made possible by generous funding from the Student Government Association and the hard work of Pi Mu Epsilon’s leadership team: president Amy Wagoner ’14, vice president Nakhila Mistry ’14, treasurer Chris Shill ’14 and faculty adviser Chad Awtrey.
Pi Mu Epsilon plans to host two events in the spring of 2014, including a special visit from the president of the national office of Pi Mu Epsilon, Eve Torrence (Randloph-Macon College). Watch for details next semester.