The Art of Math

Included below is the recording for week 6 and I will link it in the week six page, as well.

This is an overview with links to take you to pages you might find of interest. Most of the images and copy have been extracted from Wikipedia, with their offered links.  The next two weeks will feature a presentation on M.C. Escher followed by one on Origami. The Art of Math will have been well represented! Feel free to add your own observations, comments blogs and/or Facebook postings.

Here's hoping you played around with perspective drawing and if you do not wish to include in your own blog, perhaps you would do so as a reply here to my blog.  Thanks ... I will return to the regularly scheduled live Blackboard presentation on M.C. Escher, 6 December 2012. 

The Art of Math presentation is HERE

Data and the Real World ...

As I read today's NYTimes article on computers, data formulas and equations and real world conditions, numbers took on a far greater importance than intuition.  This is akin to what happened to data and presidential poll predictions, even after the majority of the votes had been counted and logged into "maps". The visualizations of data tend to interest me and tend to stick longer in my memory than mere numbers.

Even as a wordsmith, when we went to international icons, I found the visual shorthand more attractive and easier to use than what I might learn of a foreign language.  Early pictographs on the caves of Lascaux, and others, are a constant reminder of visual communication.  Perhaps visual mnemonics are a better form of recognition than words; although, it is helpful to use words in sentences for more concise communication.

HERE is an interesting animated series of data visualizations.

As I indicated earlier, many of the election pundits and politicians seemed to rely more on their theories of poll numbers, rather than the obvious visuals.  So where and when do we exercise our visual recognition and when and where are visualizations a better fit!

An article I read recentlys piqued these ideas and questions.  Keep in mind that the answers are not nearly as intriguing and interesting as the subsequent ??? they engender. 

Symmetry in a Bee (quilting bee)

This past week we delved into symmetry and visual representations of symmetrical examples.  In the back of my mind I was thinking quilts and the amazing skills our early forebears developed in designing them.  A quilt is functional as well as beautiful.  It may be complicated and encompass geometry as well as symmetry, or not.

Today I found a piece about quilts and symmetry that includes some simple activities ... or, you can gather a group of folks and start a quilting bee!

http://www.explorelearning.com/index.cfm?method=cResource.dspDetail&ResourceID=1016&epc=GOTWhttp://www.explorelearning.com/index.cfm?method=cResource.dspDetail&ResourceID=1016&epc=GOTW


Please let us know what you did, or what you think after perusing this website.  Thanks.