Journal of Math Circles
Image Credit: Alexander Heaton, The Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences
Alex shared his original image during a talk at the 2019 Joint Mathematics Meetings. This image had the words "conjecture," "compute," "iterate" on the circle. Alex posed a challenge to the audience:
The image of the spiraling line projecting down onto the circle is meant to suggest that there may be a way to "lift" our math circles up to the universal covering space, the spiral. It represents a challenge: Can we weave a longer story out of the puzzles our students experiment with and solve? Can we design a series of puzzles, perhaps over the course of several months, that teach students about some bigger-picture mathematics, like the double cover of SU(2) onto SO(3), or projective space, or...
JMC's editors were inspired by this call to action, and feel Journal of Math Circles can serve as a medium through which we can "lift" Math Circles up along three core Math Circle values: mathematical content (which Alex so wonderfully captured), problem solving, and community. These values are reflected in Alex's final image.