Week 2 Math + Art

Week 2: Math + Art
I never gave much thought about how math has had such a profound influence on art and science until this week’s assignment.  After reviewing the material, I soon realized how critical science and math are to music and art.  Music involves structure and form just like math.  I began playing the piano when I was three years old and learned how to count to the beat of the rhythm.  I also learned how to play scales, chords, and melodies in a wide range of musical styles.  While I excelled in music, math was one of my weaker subjects.  According to Cindy Zahn, there are people that do well in music but not in math.  I learned that it doesn’t matter if complex patterns in music resemble math because it is not relevant to musicians.
Value of musical notes 
According to Robert Lang, applying the basic principles of math are essential requirements in the art of Origami.  I discovered that math is the study of shapes, forms, relationships and information and those same principles are necessary in the creation of Origami.  The basic characteristics of math and Origami have emanated from a much broader world of shapes and forms.
Butterfly Origami by Robert Lang
I also learned that math and crochet are intricately connected.  For several centuries, mathematicians never believed it was possible to create a structure of hyperbolic space.  In 1997, Daina Taimina, discovered a way to model hyperbolic space through crochet.  She found that “the crocheter must constantly change the rate of increase to keep the curvature of the surface constant” (Taimina).  Her complex crocheted models have made it possible for the naked eye to see abstract mathematical properties.
A large hyperbolic crochet


Math, music, science and art have always been intertwined with each other.  Math is essential in everything we touch, see, and hear in our world.  While math may not be my favorite subject, I appreciate how it fits so neatly in my universe.   
Sources
"Diana Taimina: Discoverer of Hyperbolic Crochet." Daina Taimina | Crochet
      Coral Reef. The Institute for Figuring, 2 Apr. 2009. Web. 15 Apr. 2017. 
Jansen, Theo. "My Creations, a New Form of Life." Theo Jansen: My Creations, a New
      Form of Life | TED Talk | TED.com. TED.com, 09 June 2007. Web. 15 Apr. 2017. 
Lang, Robert. "Robert Lang: The Math and Magic of Origami (2008 TED Talk) •  
      R/origami." Ted.com. TED, 1 Feb. 2008. Web. 15 Apr. 2017. 
Ouellette, Jennifer. "Pollock's Fractals: That Isn't Just a Lot of Splattered Paint on
       Those Canvases, It's Good Mathematics." Discover Magazine. Discover Magazine,  
       1 Nov. 2001. Web. 15 Apr. 2017. 
Zhan, Cindy. "The Correlation Between Music and Math: A Neurobiology  
       Perspective." View User Website. Serendip, 16 Jan. 2008. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ben Goldberg Week 1 Blog Discussion B

Image
Week 1:  Two Cultures As a freshman and student-athlete at UCLA, I have experienced CP Snow’s concept about two cultures by simply attending class everyday on campus.  My science classes are in classrooms on South Campus while my arts and humanities classes are on North Campus.  In 1959, Snow created a “cultural controversy” (Vesna) and declared that literary intellectuals were separate from the natural sciences.  While I have never given any thought to this notion prior to this week, I can appreciate why he felt that way.  I believe the UCLA campus was originally almost 100 years ago separating its arts and sciences buildings because it was universally understood and accepted that literary intellectuals did not need to connect with scientists and vice versa. I grew up surrounded by television, movies, advertisements, and an education system that taught me that scientists wore white lab coats and worked on secret projects while artists, writers, and musicians blended into societ
Read more

Week 8 - Nanotechnology + Art

Image
DESMA BLOG – WEEK 8 Nanotechnology + Art This week’s topic about nanotechnology helped to further convince me that science continues to play a key role in creating new forms of art.   Nanotechnology is about the manipulation of matter smaller than 100 nanometers, which is about the same size of a tennis ball in comparison to the earth.  This rapidly growing field took off in the early 1980s and has since been changing the way we approach science, consumer products, and how we treat cancer patients.  In 1981, a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) was developed to view three-dimensional images of samples at the atomic level.  The “age of the immaterial was truly inaugurated” (Gimzewski and Vesna).   In 1986, the first STM was produced for commercial purposes. There are a wide variety of products incorporating nanotechnology that are available to consumers.  Nanoparticles are one of the largest segments in the commercial marketplace today.  Everyday items such as socks an
Read more

Week 9 - Space + Art

Image
DESMA BLOG – WEEK 9 Space + Art Space and art have always been closely tied together and this week’s discussions continued to support this concept.  Specifically, nanotechnology, robotics, biotechnology, and math are all connected to the study of space.  Human beings have been curious about space and what lies “out there” and beyond the earth for thousands of years.  In the early 1500s, Nicolaus Copernicus, an astronomer, used math to create his theory of the sun being in the center of the universe while the earth spun around the sun each day.  This was hugely important in the overall understanding of our heliocentric solar system.  Telescopes were invented in the 1700s.  In 1996, telescopes and nanotechnology played a key role in space exploration when molecules were detected and led to the discovery of buckyballs in a crater (Vesna). Copernicus was an important figure in establishing the concept of a heliocentric solar system.   Pop culture has fueled the imaginati
Read more