On view in the Hayden Library Loft (Floor 1M) May 12 - September 30, 2025Throughout her life, Katharine Dexter McCormick widened the horizons of what was possible for women. A suffragist, philanthropist, and scientist, she broke boundaries from an early age, becoming one of the first women to graduate from MIT. She later went on to fund McCormick Hall, the first on-campus dormitory for women at MIT. Learn more about the exhibit

Time: 6:35 AM EDT / 11:35 AM BSTLocation: Henley-on-Thames, England

February 26, 2025 - September 4, 2025Hidden within MIT’s Distinctive Collections, many architectural elements from the earliest days of the Institute’s architecture program still survive as part of the Rotch Art Collection. Among the artworks that conservators salvaged was a set of striking windows of gypsum and stained-glass, dating to the late 18th- to 19th c. Ottoman Empire. This exhibition illuminates the life of these historic windows, tracing their refracted histories from Egypt to MIT, their ongoing conservation, and the cutting-edge research they still prompt.The Maihaugen Gallery (14N-130) is open Monday through Thursday, 10am - 4pm, excluding Institute holidays.

Join a member of our Visitor Experience Team for this 45-minute introductory tour of the MIT Museum. Learn about the collection, our history, and get your questions answered by our gallery experts. Space is limited, please speak to a visitor experience representative at the admission desk when purchasing museum tickets if you would like to participate in the tour.Every Wednesday at 11am Free with museum admission

Free and open to allJoin MIT Open Space Programming for a lunchtime concert with Haitian-American singer-songwriter ZAMA, who will be performing a blend of Pop and R&B vocals with Afro-Caribbean rhythms in multiple languages. This event is curated by MIT Media Lab student Ana Schon as part of the Performing Performance Spaces concert series.

Ten minutes for your mind@2:50 every day at 2:50 pm in multiple time zones:Europa@2:50, EET, Athens, Helsinki (UTC+2) (7:50 am EST) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88298032734Atlantica@2:50, EST, New York, Toronto (UTC-4) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85349851047Pacifica@2:50, PST, Los Angeles, Vancouver (UTC=7) (5:50 pm EST) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85743543699Almost everything works better again if you unplug it for a bit, including your mind. Stop by and unplug. Get the benefits of mindfulness without the fuss.@2:50 meets at the same time every single day for ten minutes of quiet together.No pre-requisite, no registration needed.Visit the website to view all @2:50 time zones each day.at250.org or at250.mit.edu

Time: 2:05 PM EDT / 7:05 PM BSTLocation: Henley-on-Thames, England

Speaker: Pavel Etingof (MIT)Title: Which linear differential equations can be explicitly solved?Abstract:In kindergarten we learn to solve first order linear differential equations $$ y'+p(x)y=q(x) $$ (by Euler's formula), and even some higher order ones, such $y''=y$ or $x^2y''=y$. But what about $(x^2-1)y''=y$? Can it be solved explicitly, perhaps in elementary school? Middle school? High school? MIT? Well, it depends on what you mean by explicit. If you want to write solutions in elementary functions, then the answer is no (one can only write them in terms of so-called hypergeometric functions). But how to prove such a claim, or even precisely state it? This should remind us the story with algebraic equations, $$ x^n+a_1x^{n-1}+...+a_n=0. $$ In nursery school we learn how to solve them for $n=1,2$, and later some learn how to do it for $n=3$ (Cardano's formula) and $n=4$ (Ferrari's formula). But for $n\ge 5$ this cannot be done for general coefficients using only arithmetic operations and radicals. This is a great theorem of N. H. Abel which is one of the cornerstones of modern algebra and mathematics in general. The idea of proving Abel's theorem is to use symmetries that permute the $n$ roots of the equation preserving relations between them. These symmetries form a finite group $G$, a subgroup of the symmetric group $S_n$, which for general coefficients is the full $S_n$; it is called the Galois group. If the equation is solved in radicals, then $G$ should be ``glued" from cyclic groups, because the symmetries of the roots of the equation $x^n=a$ satisfied by $\sqrt[n]{a}$ form a cyclic group $\Bbb Z/n$, rotating the regular $n$-gon spanned by these roots in the complex plane. Such groups are called solvable; they are characterized by the property that their iterated commutator subgroups eventually peter out (become the trivial group $\lbrace 1brace$). The reason we can solve equations of degree $\le 4$ but not $5$ and higher is that the group $S_n$ is solvable if and only if $n\le 4$. This is a starting point of Galois theory. It is remarkable that Galois theory can be extended to differential equations, and this extension can be used to state and prove non-solvability of certain linear differential equations, such as $(x^2-1)y''+y=0$, in elementary functions. This is also based on considering the group $G$ of symmetries that permute solutions of the equation preserving relations between them. However, in this case, if the equation has order $n$, solutions form an $n$-dimensional complex vector space $\mathbb{C}^n$, so the group $G$ is a subgroup of $GL_n(\mathbb{C})$ (the group of invertible matrices of size $n$), which is the group of symmetries of this space. And it is no longer a finite group but rather an (algebraic) Lie group. For example, for the equation $(x^2-1)y''+y=0$ this group is $G=SL(2,\Bbb C)$, the subgroup of matrices with determinant $1$. This group is not solvable, which prevents us from having an explicit formula for solutions. In the talk I will explain the basics of Galois theory for differential equations and its applications. I will try to make it as elementary as possible, but some basic knowledge about groups and analytic functions will probably be needed.Reception following talk in room 2-290.