2008 joint AMS/MAA meetings
bobby
I just returned from a fantastic trip to the 2008 American Mathematical Society/Mathematical Association of America joint meetings. This was my first ever trip to the largest meeting of mathematicians in the world. There were lots and lots and lots of talks in almost every imaginable subfield in mathematics. Thankfully, I went to almost none of them.
Instead, I was in the exhibition hall, representing Sage. And while I am qiute tired of answering, “well, why should I quit using Mathematica and switch to your software?”, I had a lot of fun. William and Robert Bradshaw had spent the last several weeks integrating jmol (a java program providing 3d visualization for chemists) into Sage for use in interactive 3d plotting. The results are spectacular; you can check them out by using the plot3d() command in Sage. The Jmol people have integrated really good support for stereographic vision, both in the cross-eye and red-blue sense. We definitely attracted a large crowd in our area. Robert Bradshaw somehow got his hands on lots and lots of 3d glasses, and they were a big hit.
Sage was recently slashdotted, and as a result, much of the open source community knows about Sage. However, I feel like there are very few actual mathematicians who read slashdot. So the meetings represented a great networking opportunity for us. I am willing to bet that a lot of people will go back to their departments and colleges and universities across the continent and spread the word about Sage.
Other highlights included seeing and meeting people like Neil Sloane, Eric Weisstein, and Sheldon Axler, cruising from banquet to banquet (including the rather uncomfortable feeling of being at penthouse suite NSA “Women in Mathematics” reception), and enjoying the beautiful weather in San Diego. I also got to visit with some really cool people, and write a decent amount of Sage code. The trip was fun, exhausting, and too much time spent in an exhibition hall. That said, I’m looking forward to representing Sage next year.
Posted on: Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 9:25 pm 
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Hi, I found your blog via Google while searching for SAGE and your post regarding 2008 joint AMS/MAA meetings looks very interesting for me.
March 7th, 2008 at 3:28 am