Cool Art: Geometric Flat Lays from Kristen Meyer

Kristen Meyer's art is really cool!

Prop stylist and designer Kristen Meyer melds quotidian materials into distinctive outlines in her series of geometric flat lays. She gathers crackers, sticks, spaghetti, herbs, and other common raw materials and arranges them in circles and squares https://t.co/8nE9JZAZWx pic.twitter.com/UTip8Onsnf

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 30, 2019

Take a look at her Instagram page. Among her particularly nice pieces is this one.

The Geometric Art of Saskia Freeke

Saskia Freeke makes some really nice geometric art and posts it regularly on Twitter. I really like today's example.

Geometric Shapes / 190503#processing #creativecoding #everyday pic.twitter.com/oZXnCLZWSo

— Saskia Freeke (@sasj_nl) May 3, 2019

Beautiful Geometric Art by Saskia Freeke

Saskia Freeke has been creating and posting daily geometric art on Twitter, and I particularly like the one that she posted today.

Go and check out her work!

Geometric Shapes / 190304#processing #creativecoding pic.twitter.com/Wru3fMRHUq

— Saskia Freeke (@sasj_nl) March 4, 2019

Rubik's Poincaré Disk

Wow! This is so awesome!

#Twisty #puzzle guest tweet. #Hyperbolic #Rubik's cube analogue shown solving in the Poincaré disk model. 24-color puzzle based on the regular {7,3} #tiling. https://t.co/fH15fczvKw pic.twitter.com/3mHMGiygQ2

— Tiling Bot (@TilingBot) November 18, 2018

Poincaré Disk: Fantasy Edition

I love it!

A surface obtained by gluing six heptagons. Universal cover in the Poincaré model (the same character shown = the same point of the surface). Weapons to show that this is not orientable (it has Euler characteristic -1). Constructed by DivisionByZero [ https://t.co/zgD3J7pG4f ] pic.twitter.com/J1MzJKCkYl

— Zeno Rogue (@ZenoRogue) June 20, 2018

Manifolds Lying in a Higher-Dimensional Space

We often view manifolds as lying in some higher-dimensional space, but shouldn't we also consider ones that are telling the truth? 🤔

Tales from the ArXiv: How to Make Any Shape "Zippable"

Awesome pillows await!

One of the cutest papers I've seen on the arXiv: how to make any shape "zippable" https://t.co/KwwpcUE3w0 pic.twitter.com/q9PbbE8xKL

— Elissa (@wheelissa) November 8, 2017

(Tip of the cap to Henry Segerman.)

Dame Frances Kirwan Named "Savilian Professor" at University of Oxford!

Here is some really big news: "Dame Frances Kirwan has been elected to the Savilian Professorship at the University of Oxford. Frances will be the 20th holder of the Savilian Chair (founded in 1619), and is the first woman to be elected to any of the historic chairs in mathematics."

This is a very big deal. (See the Wikipedia entry for a discussion of this professorship.)

I know Frances. (We were colleagues in the Mathematical Institute at University of Oxford, of course) She is awesome (both as a mathematician and as a person).

Frances is somebody who is well-known within mathematics but pretty much unheard of outside mathematics.

Comic Strip: It's All Euclid's Fault

I like today's SMBC comic strip, which is about angles (and non-Euclidean geometry).

I especially like the last panel.

How Do People from Different Cultures Draw Circles?

Here is a really interesting article about how people from different cultures draw circles.

I was once — well, at least once — told in elementary school that I was drawing circles the wrong way (because I was using the wrong sense around the clock). I think I responded with the definition of a circle and that the definition doesn't depend on the sense in which one draws it, and I think my teacher did not appreciate that.

On a similar note, in high school, I once lost 50% of the point total on an answer for misspelling ellipse (by using one 'l' instead of two), which was the correct answer. I called bullshit (on the grounds that it was my mathematics knowledge that was being tested), but unfortunately I lost.

More closely related to the article, one thing I noticed in the UK is that the most common way to write an 'x' there is with two arcs, so that they won't always cross if one writes quickly. In contrast, I write two attempts at lines that explicitly cross. (I haven't checked if this is US versus UK convention.)

And, indeed, most Americans drew their circles counterclockwise in this data set, and I draw mine clockwise.

(Tip of the cap to Improbable Research for their Facebook post.)

Update: Here is a lovely quote from the article: In a 1977 paper Theodore Blau, then-president of the American Psychological Association and creator of the torque test, argued that drawing clockwise circles was a sign of learning and behavioral aberrance.

A Pop-Up Solid Geometry Book from the 1700s

Oh, wow. This is cool.

United States Ice 'Cube' Tray: Made in China

I don’t have an ice ‘cube’ tray while I wait for my Screamer ice ‘cube’ tray to be shipped along with the rest of my stuff. I was feeling a bit silly and thought this might also give a geographic conversation-starter with my nieces.

In addition to ignoring Alaska and Hawaii, there was a bit of coarse-graining done with the continental states. Who needs all 50 states anyway?

And the label ‘cube’ (on the front; not pictured) doesn’t quite work either.

Also: “Made in China”

(But at least I can now have some ice while I wait to have access to my Screamer tray again.)

Ambiguous Cylinder Illusion

The ambiguous cylinder illusion is funky.

d120s

I want d120 dice!

Awesome Embroidered Temari Spheres

These embroidered temari spheres are awesome!

(Tip of the cap to Association for Women in Mathematics.)

Tales from the ArXiv: Rodents in Hyperbolic Spaces

This morning, I noticed the new paper Can Rodents Conceive Hyperbolic Spaces? With a title like that, clearly the paper deserved a closer look.

The abstract also includes a great line: We show that, according to self-organizing models, if raised in a non-Euclidean hyperbolic cage rats should be able to form hyperbolic grids.

I know I have obvious biases as a mathematician, but the idea in the paper seems really cool to me.

Möbius Strips: Now Apparently Three-Dimensional

Today I found out about a new paper that reports the generation of Möbius strips of optical polarization, which is very exciting. Unfortunately, the paper's abstract starts out in a very depressing manner that makes me cringe: "Möbius strips are three-dimensional geometrical structures, fascinating for their peculiar property..." Nooooooo!

Although does need three dimensions embed a Möbius strip in an ambient (extrinsic) space, a Möbius strip is a two-dimensional manifold.

(Tip of the cap to Physics Today for their Facebook post of a popular article about the new discovery. Notice the comment about the number of dimensions in the correction. In this case, the popular piece has done better than the paper's abstract.)

Gaussian Curvature and its Practical Consequences

Wired has a very cool article about manifolds and curvature.

I have used ice cream cones (and the act of unrolling them) to help explain curved versus straight geodesics for one of the problems our student had to do in calculus of variations. I then "assigned" my students to do this the next time they went to the local ice cream place.

(Tip of the cap to Jeremy Kun.)

Geometric Sandcastles

For your visual and mathematical enjoyment, here are some nice geometric sandcastles.

(Tip of the cap to MoMath: The Museum of Mathematics.)

Beach Art

For some really awesome geometric art created on beach sand, take a look at this website.

(Tip of the cap to Greg Stolerman and Susan Schaeffer.)