Beauty, Truth, Math, Art

Feature

Friday, February 03, 2012

Gabriele Meyer's Red Blossom Gabriele Meyer's Red Blossom (Sarah P. Reynolds)

Last month, thousands of mathematicians attended the Joint Mathematics Meeting in Boston — the largest annual gathering of its kind. In addition to presentations on phylogenetic algebraic geometry and trace formulas, the conference featured an art exhibition, with 80 artists presenting more than 120 works.

Gabriele Meyer is a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin Math Department — she crochets colorful “hyperbolic surfaces” (imagine a rainbow fluorescent head of lettuce). “In math if you want to prove something really beautiful, you have to understand the structure,” she explains. “And the structure means you understand the beauty of an object and with that knowledge you often times can make a very important and deep proof. That’s why beauty matters tremendously in mathematics.”

 

Video: Mathematical Art

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    Artist: Yacht
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    Label: Dfa Records
    Purchase: Amazon

Contributors:

Sarah P. Reynolds

Comments [5]

philomorph from NJ but soon to be further West...

No videos, but the art exhibition catalogs can be purchased from Robert Fathauer's website "MathArtFun":
http://mathartfun.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/index.html
as can the proceedings from "Bridges" math-art conferences:
http://bridgesmathart.org/

Feb. 28 2012 08:53 PM
Piagirlie7 from Boston

Would have been nice to know about this event, but that's Boston for you...only some people know, happens all the time, hearing about something AFTER it happens - its why I love NYC - better press, and they WANT you to come to be able to broaden your knowledge, to experience these sort of things while they are happening, not just from a news story.

Feb. 25 2012 12:24 PM
Bensimon

Does anyone have other videos from the math exibition? Would love to se more.

Feb. 16 2012 06:40 AM
stevedunn from council bluffs, ia

A very interesting story and exhibit. As a painter myself, I use mathmatics in all of my paintings. Although not a mathmatician, I have always thought of mathmatics as one of the "purest" art forms.

Thank you.

Feb. 06 2012 09:35 AM
gary from N.E. MD

math is inherently beautiful

Feb. 04 2012 07:13 PM

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