This week San Diego, California is home to the largest mathematics meeting in the world. Hosted by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and the American Mathematical Society (AMS), the 2013 Joint Mathematics Meeting is more than just panels and presentations—it is a mass gathering of people who are passionate about mathematics.

Mathematicians come from diverse backgrounds, maintain varying interests, and have their own unique journeys. In Fascinating Mathematical People: Interviews and Memoirs, Fern Hunt describes what it was like to be among the first black women to earn a PhD in mathematics, Harold Bacon makes trips to Alcatraz to help a prisoner learn calculus, and Thomas Banchoff, who first became interested in the fourth dimension while reading a Captain Marvel comic, relates his fascinating friendship with Salvador Dalí and their shared passion for art, mathematics, and the profound connection between the two. But whether they view mathematics as reason, art, or something else, all mathematicians are in search of truth.

This week is not only an endeavor in furthering the pursuit of knowledge, but a celebration of the gifted mathematical intellectuals who shape society, culture, and our awareness and understanding of ourselves and the world in which we live. Browse our website or latest mathematics catalog to see more by and about mathematicians, such as Paul J. Nahin’s The Logician and the Engineer: How George Boole and Claude Shannon Created the Information Age. If you’re at the Joint Mathematics Meeting, you may even visit us at booth 311. As Underwood Dudley wrote in “What Is Mathematics For?” included in The Best Writing on Mathematics: 2011 (The Best Writing on Mathematics: 2012 also available.), “What mathematics education is for is not for jobs. It is to teach the race to reason,” and we’ve all got room to learn.