Thanks to everyone that stopped by to help us celebrate our 20th birthday. We enjoyed sharing it with all of you. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the most up to date photos and happenings here at Forum.

The Math Forum was founded (as the Geometry Forum) on June 15, 1992 at Swarthmore College by Professor Gene Klotz. Since the Web didn’t exist yet, one of the projects we undertook was to develop a news reader, called the Forum News Gateway, that would allow easy sharing of mathematical graphics and notation. The introduction of Mosaic, the first popular “web” browser, in 1993 made our fancy news reader unnecessary, and we instead focused our energies on helping educators understand why they might care about “the Internet”.

The Math Forum staff in 1992

Back in the day!

In 1993, our first mentored Geometry Problem of the Week debuted, thanks to a suggestion by high school geometry teacher Keith Grove. When asked, after a week-long summer institute with Geometry Forum, what would keep him coming back to our site, he said, “If there were a geometry problem posted every week, I’d have my kids do it.” So we did, and he did – as did dozens more students … then hundreds … then thousands!  Annie mentored them all (by e-mail!), and mapped their locations on a world map wall mural in our first office, but soon enough we ran out of countries to chart. Over the next six years we added seven new Problems of the Week services and developed our first PoW “office,” through which we ultimately mentored hundreds of thousands of students. We also launched our Internet Math Library, and our hugely popular ask-an-expert service, Ask Dr. Math.  By 1996 we officially became the Math Forum, thanks in part to a second grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Were you mentored on a PoW? Did you use them in your classes? Have you ever asked a question of Dr. Math or browsed the Internet Math Library? We’d love to hear what you remember from our 20 years of being on the Internet! You can leave us a comment below or Tweet to @themathforum.

Check out our full timeline here: http://mathforum.org/timeline.html

Today, the Math Forum as you know it operates under Drexel University’s Goodwin College of Professional Studies in Philadelphia. We have millions of pages of content and thousands of registered Problem of the Week members from all over the world.

How do you use the Math Forum now? What new features, such as the new look for the PoWs, the Problem Solving Activity Series, the Primary PoWs, or the blogs and videos, do you like? We’d love to hear your reflections about how the Forum has grown!

The Math Forum crew today! (Anyone out there know the names of the four people who appear in both pictures?)

We hope you’ll stay tuned as we embark on the next 20 years, and we’d love to hear your happy birthday wishes or your favorite Math Forum memory in the comments below.