By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics After last week’s column on mathematical quilts, I thought I should continue in the fiber arts category with mathematical objects that can be made by crochet. Matthew Wright at the University of Chicago has crocheted some beautiful Seifert surfaces, shown below. These are (approximately) the form that […]
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics The traditional craft of quilting can be used to make many mathematical forms. While quilters have always used geometry to work out repeating patterns, some modern quilters go further in using mathematical objects as the subjects of their quilts. Here are two impressive examples by Sarah Mylchreest […]
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics Each year I visit the annual Origami convention in New York City, and this year, as always, I was impressed by the wide range of works on display. The mathematical examples get more sophisticated each year. Here are just four examples to illustrate a range of folding […]
I’m very happy to announce the availability of Jeff Potter’s Cooking for Geeks in the Maker Shed. I met Jeff while he was making ice cream with liquid nitrogen at a party sometime last year. I don’t think I’ve been more excited about a cookbook in my life. If you were ever curious about what you eat beyond the ingredients and recipe, then Cooking for Geeks is for you.
The page below, from the Universe of Utah’s Genetics Science Learning Center, shows you how easy it is to extract DNA strands from any living thing (but stay away from living things that might be pissed at you for liquefying a half a cup of them in a blender). The rest of the Learn.Genetics site […]
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics Here’s a challenge: Make something cool from binder clips. It will be tough to beat this spherical construction by Yang Enqi. Using one handle, five clips of one color are linked cyclically into a pentagon. Using the other handle, twelve of these pentagons assemble like a dodecahedron […]
Have you ever been curious how a glow stick works or how they achieve all those wonderful colors? In this video from NurdRage you’ll learn what it takes to generate the chemical energy needed and how to harness it to create various colors in the spectrum.
