Taking Making to the Limit

For the Museum of Mathematics

Continuing Math Mondays’ series on the recent Bridges conference, today we highlight three different genres of mathematical making which we have seen before in Math Mondays, but which were represented at the highest levels of intricacy and development at Bridges. To start with, mathematical beading: various polyhedra cleverly strung with beads have graced this column in the past.  But at bridges we had the following offerings taking this technique to a very high level:

Next up is mathematical quilting, which we have seen twice already in this space. There were a couple of different entries in this category at Bridges:

The second of these is based on Marjorie Rice‘s “Versatile,” a pentagon that tiles the plane in numerous different ways.

And to wrap up for today, we’ve seen various mathematical knitting/crocheting/textile projects in Math Mondays, but here’s a new twist:  An actual, wearable cross-cap.

Plenty more highlights to come…