Geometreks

Few people expect to encounter mathematics on a visit to an art gallery or even a walk down a city street (or across campus). When we explore the world around us with mathematics in mind, however, we see the many ways in which mathematics can manifest itself, in streetscapes, sculptures, paintings, architectural structures, and more. This illustrated presentation offers illuminating glimpses of mathematics, from Euclidean geometry and normal distributions to Riemann sums and Möbius strips, as seen in a variety of structures and artworks in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Toronto, Ottawa, New Orleans, and many other locales.

Puzzle 1: Incomplete Open Cubes

Puzzle 2: Lines in Four Directions

Online Bibliography 

References

Geometreks

Möbius at the Shopping Mall

Recycling Topology

Möbius in the Playground

Peterson, I. 2001. Fragments of Infinity: A Kaleidoscope of Math and Art. Wiley.

Places

Cambridge, MA

• Kresge Auditorium, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Public Art
• MIT Public Art Collection

Charlottesville, VA

• The Rotunda, University of Virginia

Montreal

• Expo '67

Ottawa

• National Gallery of Canada
• Math Trails in Ottawa
• City of Ottawa Public Art

Paris

• Eiffel Tower: Models of Its Shape

Iosif Pinelis, Michigan Tech

Patrick Weidman, University of Colorado

David Billington: Structural Study of the Eiffel Tower

Philadelphia

• Public Art Philadelphia
• Philadelphia Public Art

St. Louis, MO

• Priory Chapel, Saint Louis Abbey
• Gateway Arch (Jefferson National Expansion Memorial)

Seattle

• Space Needle

Toronto

• Art Walk
• Ontario College of Art & Design
• Art on the TTC
• Stainless Steel in Urban Sculpture
• Outdoor Art in Toronto

Washington, DC

• Mathematical Association of America
• National Gallery of Art
• Sculpture Garden, National Gallery of Art

People

Ted Bieler

Max Bill

• Baltimore Museum of Art, Sculpture Garden

Jose De Rivera

Helaman Ferguson

• A Fibonacci Fountain
• Umbilic Torus NC

Robinson Fredenthal

Bathsheba Grossman

Sol LeWitt

• Puzzling Lines
• Incomplete Open Cubes
• Four-Sided Pyramid

Guido Molinari

I.M. Pei

Charles O. Perry

John Robinson

Arthur Silverman

• Art of the Tetrahedron, Revisited
• Art of the Tetrahedron

Kenneth Snelson

Arlene Stamp

• Sliding Pi
• Binary Frieze

Edward Durell Stone

• University at Albany

Keizo Ushio

• Sculpting with a Twist

Bill Vazan

Robert R. Wilson

• Möbius at Fermilab

Euclidean Geometry

Bergamini, D., and the editors of LIFE. 1963. Mathematics. New York: Time.

Devlin, K. 1998. Life by the Numbers. New York: Wiley.

Peterson, I. 2003. Geometreks. Science News Online (Nov. 8). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20031108/mathtrek.asp.

______. 2001. Fragments of Infinity: A Kaleidoscope of Math and Art. New York: Wiley. See http://www.isama.org/book/fragments/.

______. 2000. Puzzling lines. Science News Online (June 10). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20000610/mathtrek.asp.

______. 2000. Math trails in Ottawa. Science News Online (May 27). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20000527/mathtrek.asp.

Take a virtual tour of the National Gallery of Art's East Building at http://www.nga.gov/collection/eastarch1.htm. Information about I.M. Pei's design can be found at http://www.nga.gov/collection/20th_intro.htm.

Fractals

Friedman, N. 2003. Fractals bounding negative space: Fractal stone prints. Mathematics Awareness Month. Available at http://mathforum.org/mam/03/essay5.html.

Peterson, I. 2003. Fractured granite and fractal prints. Science News Online (April 5). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030405/mathtrek.asp.

______. 2002. Fractal roots and artful math. Science News Online (April 5). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020608/mathtrek.asp.

Hyperbolic Geometry

Henderson, D.W., and D. Taimina. 2001. Crocheting the hyperbolic plane. Mathematical Intelligencer 23(No. 2):17-28.

Peterson, I. 2004. Anatomy of a bead creature. Science News Online (April 17). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040417/mathtrek.asp.

______. 2003. Hyperbolic five. Science News Online (Aug. 30). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030830/mathtrek.asp.

______. 2000. Visions of infinity. Science News 158(Dec. 23&30):408-410.

You can learn more about hyperbolic tilings and art at http://mathforum.org/mam/03/essay1.html.

Additional information about hyperbolic tilings can be found at http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/poincare/poincare.html.

You can learn more about the poet William Carlos Williams at http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=120. A QuickTime video clip presenting his 1928 poem "The Great Figure" is available at http://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/vvspot/video/williams.html.