Mathemalchemy is a traveling art installation dedicated to a celebration of the intersection of art and mathematics. It is a collaborative work led by

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...

mathematician

Ingrid Daubechies Baroness Ingrid Daubechies ( ; ; born 17 August 1954) is a Belgian physicist and mathematician. She is best known for her work with wavelets in image compression. Daubechies is recognized for her study of the mathematical methods that enhance i ...

and

fiber artist Fiber art (fibre art in British spelling) refers to fine art whose material consists of natural or synthetic fiber and other components, such as fabric or yarn. It focuses on the materials and on the manual labor on the part of the artist as ...

Dominique Ehrmann.Mathemalchemy: a mathematical and artistic adventure
Oxford Mathematical Institute The cross-disciplinary team of 24 people, who collectively built the installation during the calendar years 2020 and 2021, includes artists, mathematicians and craftspeople who employed a wide variety of materials to illustrate, amuse and educate the public on the wonders, mystery and beauty of mathematics. Including the core team of 24, about 70 people contributed in some way to the realization of Mathemalchemy.Mercer professor part of team creating large-scale mathematical art piece at Duke
By Andrea Honaker, Mercer University, July 8, 2021

Themes

The installation features or illustrates mathematical concepts at many different levels. All of the participants regard "

recreational mathematics Recreational mathematics is mathematics carried out for recreation (entertainment) rather than as a strictly research and application-based professional activity or as a part of a student's formal education. Although it is not necessarily limited ...

"—especially when it has a strong visual component—as having an important role in education and in culture in general.

Jessica Sklar Jessica Katherine Sklar (born 1973) is a mathematician interested in abstract algebra, recreational mathematics, mathematics and art, and mathematics and popular culture. She is a professor of mathematics at Pacific Lutheran University, and former ...

maintains that "mathematics is, at heart, a human endeavor" and feels compelled to make it accessible to those who don't regard themselves as "math people." Bronna Butler talks about the heritage of JH Conway, whose lectures were "almost magical in quality" because they used what looked like curios and tricks but in the end arrived at answers to "fundamental questions of mathematics".

Henry Segerman Henry Segerman (born 1979 in Manchester, UK) is an Associate Professor of mathematics at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma who does research in three-dimensional geometry and topology, especially three-manifolds, triangulations a ...

, who wrote the book ''Visualizing Mathematics With 3D Printing,''Visualizing Mathematics With 3D Printing by Henry Segerman
reviewed by Laura Taalman, The

American Mathematical Monthly ''The American Mathematical Monthly'' is a mathematical journal founded by Benjamin Finkel in 1894. It is published ten times each year by Taylor & Francis for the Mathematical Association of America. The ''American Mathematical Monthly'' is an e ...

, 22 Mar 2018, pp. 379-384 contributed 3D pieces that explore stereographic projection and polyhedra. According to

Susan Goldstine Susan Goldstine is an American mathematician active in mathematics and fiber arts. She is a professor of mathematics at St. Mary's College of Maryland, and (for 2019–2022) the Steven Muller Distinguished Professor in the Sciences at St. Mary's C ...

, "The interplay between mathematics and fiber arts is endlessly fascinating ndallows for a deeper understanding ways that these crafts can illuminate complex concepts in mathematics."

Edmund Harriss Edmund Orme Harriss (born 1976 in Worcester, UK) is a British mathematician, Twenty of the mathemalcheimists are women and the facility especially celebrates the contributions of women in mathematics, from amateur

Marjorie Rice Marjorie Ruth Rice (née Jeuck) (1923–2017) was an American amateur mathematician most famous for her discoveries of pentagonal tilings in geometry. Background Rice was born February 16, 1923, in St. Petersburg, Florida. Marjorie Rice was a ...

, who found new kinds of pentagon tilings, to

Maryam Mirzakhani Maryam Mirzakhani ( fa, مریم میرزاخانی, ; 12 May 1977 – 14 July 2017) was an Iranian mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. Her research topics included Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ...

, the first woman to ever garner a

Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award ho ...

Gallery

The creators had the goal of illustrating as much of mathematics as possible. Thus the various exhibits touch on

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic function, integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777� ...

fractal In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as illu ...

tessellation A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface, often a plane (mathematics), plane, using one or more geometric shapes, called ''tiles'', with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to high-dimensional ...

probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set o ...

Zeno's paradoxes Zeno's paradoxes are a set of philosophical problems generally thought to have been devised by Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea (c. 490–430 BC) to support Parmenides' doctrine that contrary to the evidence of one's senses, the belief in pluralit ...

Venn diagram A Venn diagram is a widely used diagram style that shows the logical relation between set (mathematics), sets, popularized by John Venn (1834–1923) in the 1880s. The diagrams are used to teach elementary set theory, and to illustrate simple ...

knot theory In the mathematical field of topology, knot theory is the study of knot (mathematics), mathematical knots. While inspired by knots which appear in daily life, such as those in shoelaces and rope, a mathematical knot differs in that the ends are ...

calculus Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithm ...

chaos theory Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to have co ...

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformations, such ...

hyperbolic geometry In mathematics, hyperbolic geometry (also called Lobachevskian geometry or Bolyai– Lobachevskian geometry) is a non-Euclidean geometry. The parallel postulate of Euclidean geometry is replaced with: :For any given line ''R'' and point ''P'' ...

symbolic logic Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal ...

—and much else—all in a setting that is beautiful and fun. Mathematicians explicitly mentioned or alluded to include

Vladimir Arnold Vladimir Igorevich Arnold (alternative spelling Arnol'd, russian: link=no, Влади́мир И́горевич Арно́льд, 12 June 1937 – 3 June 2010) was a Soviet and Russian mathematician. While he is best known for the Kolmogorov–A ...

John H. Conway John Horton Conway (26 December 1937 – 11 April 2020) was an English people, English mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He also made contributions to ...

Felix Klein Christian Felix Klein (; 25 April 1849 – 22 June 1925) was a German mathematician and mathematics educator, known for his work with group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the associations between geometry and group ...

Sofya Kovalevskaya Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (russian: link=no, Софья Васильевна Ковалевская), born Korvin-Krukovskaya ( – 10 February 1891), was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differen ...

Henri Lebesgue Henri Léon Lebesgue (; June 28, 1875 – July 26, 1941) was a French mathematician known for his theory of integration, which was a generalization of the 17th-century concept of integration—summing the area between an axis and the curve of ...

Ada Lovelace Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (''née'' Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the A ...

Benoit Mandelbrot Benoit B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a Polish-born French-American mathematician and polymath with broad interests in the practical sciences, especially regarding what he labeled as "the art of roughness" of phy ...

August Möbius August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian calendar, Julian and Gregorian calendars, and the fifth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. Its zodiac sign is Leo (astrology), Leo and was originally named ''Sextilis'' in Latin ...

Emmy Noether Amalie Emmy NoetherEmmy is the ''Rufname'', the second of two official given names, intended for daily use. Cf. for example the résumé submitted by Noether to Erlangen University in 1907 (Erlangen University archive, ''Promotionsakt Emmy Noethe ...

Bernhard Riemann Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (; 17 September 1826 – 20 July 1866) was a German mathematician who made contributions to analysis, number theory, and differential geometry. In the field of real analysis, he is mostly known for the first rig ...

Caroline Series Caroline Mary Series (born 24 March 1951) is an English mathematician known for her work in hyperbolic geometry, Kleinian groups and dynamical systems. Early life and education Series was born on 24 March 1951 in Oxford to Annette and George ...

Wacław Sierpiński Wacław Franciszek Sierpiński (; 14 March 1882 – 21 October 1969) was a Polish mathematician. He was known for contributions to set theory (research on the axiom of choice and the continuum hypothesis), number theory, theory of functions, and to ...

Alicia Boole Stott Alicia Boole Stott (8 June 1860 – 17 December 1940) was an Irish mathematician. Despite never holding an academic position, she made a number of valuable contributions to the field, receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Groni ...

William Thurston William Paul Thurston (October 30, 1946August 21, 2012) was an American mathematician. He was a pioneer in the field of low-dimensional topology and was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982 for his contributions to the study of 3-manifolds. Thurston ...

Helge von Koch Niels Fabian Helge von Koch (25 January 1870 – 11 March 1924) was a Swedish mathematician who gave his name to the famous fractal known as the Koch snowflake, one of the earliest fractal curves to be described. He was born to Swedish nobility. ...

Gladys West Gladys Mae West (née Brown; born October 27, 1930) is an American mathematician known for her contributions to the mathematical modeling of the shape of the Earth, and her work on the development of the satellite geodesy models that were even ...

Zeno Zeno ( grc, Ζήνων) may refer to: People * Zeno (name), including a list of people and characters with the name Philosophers * Zeno of Elea (), philosopher, follower of Parmenides, known for his paradoxes * Zeno of Citium (333 – 264 BC), ...

and many others. File:Mathalchemy Art Installation.jpg, Mathemalchemy Art Installation.
Photo by Kevin Allen File:Mathemalchemy Map.jpg, Map of Mathemalchemy.
Drawing by Bronna Butler File:Mathemalchemy-Chipmunks.webp, Chipmunks learn about prime and composite numbers through a game involving acorns and Babylonian numeral tiles.
Photo by Elizabeth Paley File:Polyhedra-in-garden-and-reef-with-Sieve-of-Eratosthenes.png, Mathematically-inspired flora and fauna fill the garden and reef as two squirrels discuss prime number algorithms in front of their Sieve of Eratosthenes.
Photo by Elizabeth Paley File:Converging-ball-arch-detail.png, A converging series of mari (unembroidered) and temari (embroidered) balls rises above the Mathemalchemy installation.
Photo by Elizabeth Paley File:Koch-snowflakes-and-cavalcade.png, Koch snowflakes descend through the Cavalcade of mathematical pages onto Integral Hill in the Mathemalchemy exhibit.
Photo by Elizabeth Paley File:Doodle-quilt-detail.png, Mathemalchemy's Great Doodle Page celebrates jottings by seven notable women in mathematics.
Photo by Elizabeth Paley File:Mandelbrot-Bakery.png, What does math taste like? Cat and mouse prepare treats in the math-infused bakery.
Photo by Elizabeth Paley File:Cryptography-quilt.png, Mathemalchemy's Cryptography Quilt represents 27 ways to encode messages.
Photo by Elizabeth Paley File:Tamari ball arch with teenager.png, The silhouette of a teenager surfs above the Cavalcade and Ball Arches.
Photo by Elizabeth Paley File:Zenos-Path.png, Tess the Tortoise ambles down Zeno's Path toward Integral Hill.
Photo by Elizabeth Paley File:Cavalcade-detail.png, Detail from Mathemalchemy's Cavalcade of mathematical pages.
Photo by Elizabeth Paley

History

Mathemalchemy_sendoff_party_projection_match_map

Ingrid and Dominique presented the project in a special session at the 2020

Joint Mathematics Meetings The Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) is a mathematics conference hosted annually in early January by the American Mathematical Society (AMS). Frequently, several other national mathematics organizations also participate. The meeting is the largest g ...

(JMM) in Denver, Colorado.Mathemalchemy to Open at NAS
Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences, Jan. 12, 2022 They soon had a core group of more than a dozen interested mathematicians and artists who in turn suggested other people not at JMM. Eventually the group would grow to 24 people.Mathemalchemy: A Playful Pandemic Project
, by Kimberly A. Roth and Jessica K. Sklar, MAA Focus, October/November 2021, pp. 20-23 Originally, the intent was to collectively design and fabricate in a series of workshops to be held at Duke University in

Durham, NC Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County and Wake County. With a population of 283,506 in the 2020 Census, Durham is the 4th-mos ...

, starting in March 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted these plans. Working instead over

Zoom Zoom may refer to: Technology Computing * Zoom (software), videoconferencing application * Page zooming, the ability to magnify or shrink a portion of a page on a computer display * Zooming user interface, a graphical interface allowing for image ...

, under the guidance of Dominique Ehrmann and various "team leaders" for different parts of the installation, the 16 by 12 by 10 foot installation was collectively designed and discussed. In July 2021 the team could finally get together at Duke for the first in-person meeting, where the components that had been fabricated in various locations in the US and Canada were assembled for the first time, leading to the first complete full-scale construction. The 24 members of the team employed

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

knitting Knitting is a method by which yarn is manipulated to create a textile, or fabric. It is used to create many types of garments. Knitting may be done by hand or by machine. Knitting creates stitches: loops of yarn in a row, either flat or i ...

crocheting Crochet (; ) is a process of creating textiles by using a crochet hook to interlock loops of yarn, thread, or strands of other materials. The name is derived from the French term ''crochet'', meaning 'hook'. Hooks can be made from a variety of m ...

quilting Quilting is the term given to the process of joining a minimum of three layers of fabric together either through stitching manually using a needle and thread, or mechanically with a sewing machine or specialised longarm quilting system. A ...

beadwork Beadwork is the art or craft of attaching beads to one another by stringing them onto a thread or thin wire with a sewing or beading needle or sewing them to cloth. Beads are produced in a diverse range of materials, shapes, and sizes, and vary b ...

3D printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the Manufacturing, construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design, CAD model or a digital 3D modeling, 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is ...

welding Welding is a fabrication (metal), fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by using high heat to melt the parts together and allowing them to cool, causing Fusion welding, fusion. Welding is distinct from lower ...

woodworking Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making (cabinetry and furniture), wood carving, woodworking joints, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning. History Along with Rock (geology), stone, clay and animal parts, ...

textile Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

embellishment,

origami ) is the Japanese paper art, art of paper folding. In modern usage, the word "origami" is often used as an inclusive term for all folding practices, regardless of their culture of origin. The goal is to transform a flat square sheet of pape ...

, metal-folding, water-sculpted brick and temari ballsArs Mathemalchemica: From Math to Art and Back Again
by S. Goldstine, E. Paley, and H. Segerman,

Notices of the American Mathematical Society ''Notices of the American Mathematical Society'' is the membership journal of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), published monthly except for the combined June/July issue. The first volume appeared in 1953. Each issue of the magazine since ...

, Vol 69, No 7, 2022 to create the room-sized installation.Art Installation Celebrates the Beauty and Whimsy of Math
Duke Today, November 9, 2021 The finished installation was originally displayed at Duke before moving to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) building in

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

where it was on display from December 4, 2021, until June 12, 2022. The inaugural exhibit at NAS closed with "Mathemalchemy Family Day" on June 12. The installation is showing at

Juniata College Juniata College is a private liberal arts college in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1876 as a co-educational school, it was the first college started by members of the Church of the Brethren as a center for vocational learning for those wh ...

Huntingdon, Pennsylvania Huntingdon is a borough in (and the county seat of) Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located along the Juniata River, approximately east of Altoona, Pennsylvania, Altoona and west of Harris ...

on June 23 where it will stay until December 3, 2022. Future venues will include

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

(January-March 2023),

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

(Summer through Fall 2023),

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

and

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

(Spring 2024 through Fall 2024).Mathemalchemy News
/ref> The exhibit is planned to ultimately end up in the Duke mathematics building, to be on permanent display.

References

External links

*
Mathemalchemy Art Installation on YouTube
{{mathematical art Installation art works Recreational mathematics Mathematics organizations Mathematics conferences Mathematics education Mathematics and art Traveling exhibits Mathematics education in the United States Art and design organizations Organizations established in 2020 Artist groups and collectives 2020 establishments