By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics A lathe is used to turn wood into baseball bats, spindles, and other shapes with rotational symmetry. It can also be applied to making many types of mathematical models. Bob Rollings made this construction from spindles that form the edges of an icosahedron inside of a dodecahedron. […]
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics With paper and scissors and patience, you can make an amazing variety of mathematical forms. The paper sculpture below consists of twenty identical components that form a complex linkage. They lock together without glue in a very symmetric arrangement. If you want to try this, the template […]
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics Beading is a traditional craft which recently has been applied to make interesting mathematical models. Here are some impressive examples by Bih-Yaw Jin, starting with a beaded Mobius strip. A beaded helical surface twists through space like a cork screw. All five Platonic solids are shown here, […]
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics In 1995, I designed this hypothetical construction and posted a computer rendering of it online. It is called “Nailbanger’s Nightmare” because I thought it was far more complex than any carpenter would ever want to make. After fifteen years, I was surprised to receive an email from […]
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics The icosahedron consists of twenty equilateral triangles, meeting five at each vertex. Here are two icosahedron constructions you can make from soda bottles. These were designed and built by Mario Marin, whose web site shows many creative ways to recycle household objects into polyhedral structures. Pairs of […]
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics This four inch diameter ball is a two-layer geodesic sphere. It has an outer layer of triangles connected with an inner layer of pentagons and hexagons, which is the structure of geodesic domes such as the Montreal Expo67 dome. The above design is unique, however, in that […]
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics Here’s a challenge for you. Make the coolest thing you can from a bucket of old golf balls. It might be hard to beat this Sierpinski triangle and Sierpinski tetrahedron! These are both made by Dale Seymour. And in case you are wondering if is is solid […]
