Good evening welcome to the National Museum of mathematics and to a very special event. I think we are all delighted that the museum is putting on this event tonight and even more delighted that they are doing it with the support of the Mathematical Association of america which is helping out tonight and in particular they loaned us james hansen tonight whom i will introduce in a moment. My name is john ewing. Im the president of math for america and i am a mathematician [applause] this was not meant to be an aa meeting by the way. [laughter] every professional mathematician knows that mathematicians and their subject have a certain reputation. A world famous mathematician is walking in the countryside one day when he comes upon a huge flock of sheep and being a world famous mathematician goes up to the shepherd and makes a proposition. 100 against one of your sheep that i can tell can tell you instantly how many sheep are in the flock. The shepherd knowing that there were an awful lot