Introducing The Math3ma Institute
Today I am excited to share that the Math3ma platform has recently grown in a small yet personal way. This new endeavor is in its early stages, but it is one that is close to my heart and gives life to the reasons I started this blog six years ago. A more personal announcement can be found in a new article I wrote for the university, but I'd like to give an update here as well.
This semester I joined The Master's University (TMU), a small private Christian university in southern California, as a visiting research professor of mathematics. I am still a full-time research mathematician in the tech world, but I've also been collaborating part time with the math, science, and engineering faculty at TMU to launch a little research hub on the university's campus and online.
We are calling it The Math3ma Institute, and the website is now live: www.math3ma.institute.
What is The Math3ma Institute?
I've branded our little venture an "institute," though its function is notably different from that of other research institutions. Our vision is that The Math3ma Institute will grow into a place where TMU faculty and advanced undergraduates, along with external colleagues, can engage in research activities in various STEM fields—not just mathematics—and where those results will then be made accessible to a broad audience in easy-to-understand ways. This is summarized in the trifecta boldly displayed on our homepage: discover. share. repeat.
To this end, we are aiming to produce several publicly-available resources, including the launch of semi-annual journal described below.
Importantly, our target audience is not experts or academics, but rather anyone who is interested in learning more about mathematics, science, and technology with a Biblical perspective. More details on why I've chosen to expand Math3ma in this unique way may be found in the article mentioned above and more succinctly in the Institute's mission statement.
To help bring this vision into reality, I am joined by my colleagues Monica Vroman, a computer scientist whose research lies in machine learning, and David Crater, a software engineer in defense and intelligence satellite systems with research in natural language modeling. Monica is also a visiting research professor of computer science at TMU, and David is the chair of the university's engineering and computer science departments. Both are scholars of the highest quality and excellence, and it is a great honor and privilege for me to work alongside them in these endeavors. You can learn more on our faculty page.
The Journal and New Blog
One of our first initiatives is the release of The Journal of The Math3ma Institute, a new semi-annual expository journal with content on original academic research in STEM. Our first volume is currently in production with a target publication date of February 2022. This inaugural collection of articles will feature lay explanations of original research in reinforcement learning, Hebrew translation with large language models, my recent work on entropy and topology, and more.
The journal will be freely available online and will also come in a print edition. If you would like to be notified when the electronic version of Volume 1 is available, simply subscribe to our digital mailing list. We are also happy to offer one free hard copy of the first volume to anyone in the continental US who would like to receive one when it becomes available early next year. Simply subscribe to be added to our print edition's mailing list. (International shipping is not available at this time.)
The Math3ma Institute also has a new blog with articles to be written by TMU science faculty and select external colleagues. If you are interested in having these blog posts delivered to your inbox, feel free to visit our blog page and subscribe.
The Official Launch
The Math3ma Institute was officially announced on Saturday, October 30, during TMU's inaugural TheoTech conference, a venue that explored science and technology while remaining firmly grounded in Biblical theology. Conference speakers included Dr. John MacArthur (chancellor of TMU and pastor/teacher at Grace Community Church), Dr. Abner Chou (interim president of TMU), Dr. John Lennox (professor emeritus of mathematics at Oxford University), Dr. Joe Francis (Dean of Science at TMU), Dr. Joey Kim (assistant professor of biological/physical sciences at TMU), and myself.
The event was recorded, and I believe the videos of the talks will be made available online soon. If so, then I'll look forward to sharing the recording of my presentation here on this blog. (I gave a talk on mathematics.) The conference had a very nice turnout, and it may likely become an annual event that we'll host under the Institute starting next year.
It was an immense honor to be among so many like-minded people this weekend, and it was a great joy for me to see Math3ma begin to expand in the midst of such stellar company.
Looking Ahead
This site, math3ma.com, will still be here, and I'll still use it to post occasional articles about mathematics as I have in the past. But if you are interested in following the unique content we are producing at The Math3ma Institute, then I hope you'll take some time to check out our website and follow us on Twitter.
If you have any questions about these endeavors, please feel free to reach out. Incidentally, I tend to be a bit slow in keeping up with the comments section on this blog, but my direct contact info can be found on my research page.
Lastly, many thanks to all you who've followed Math3ma for any amount of time. I especially appreciate the kind and encouraging words you've shared with me over the years about the ways in which Math3ma has been helpful. It is my earnest desire that our new initiatives at The Math3ma Institute may likewise be encouraging and beneficial to many folks, perhaps in even more meaningful ways.