Lectures on Tap - "Knot Theory: The Mathematics of Everyday Tangles"

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: "Knot Theory: The Mathematics of Everyday Tangles"

🎙️ Speaker: Professor Ismar Volić

Join us for a mind-bending evening as Professor Ismar Volić untangles the surprising mathematics of knots—those simple-looking loops that reveal deep truths about our world. Starting from familiar objects like shoelaces and headphone cords, knot theory quickly leads to profound questions about the structure and complexity of space itself, with applications to molecular knotting, DNA, drug design, and even our understanding of the three-dimensional universe.

Ismar Volić is a Professor of Mathematics and Director of the Institute for Mathematics and Democracy at Wellesley College. A graduate of Boston University with a Ph.D. from Brown University, his research spans topology and social choice theory. He has delivered more than three hundred lectures in over twenty countries, and has been a visiting professor at Harvard University, MIT, and the University of Virginia. His writing has appeared in The Hill, TIME, and LitHub. His latest book, Making Democracy Count, won the Mathematical Association of America’s Euler Prize and was a finalist for the PROSE award.

Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌

Agenda

6:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.

6:55 PM – Host introduction

7:00 PM – Lecture begins

7:45 PM – Audience Q&A

8:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round

8:30 PM – Wrap up.