When Vortices Colllide

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(Via Jack Morava)

The Mind-Bending Math Art Posters Of Simon Page

(via io9.com)

Trained mathematician Simon Page has found a new career in graphic design, where he blends 1960s minimalist influences with more futuristic designs. His work shines in this collection of posters for the International Year of Astronomy 2009.

IYA 2009 was a yearlong celebration of astronomy declared by the United Nations. The event coincided with the four hundredth anniversary of Galileo's first use of the telescope to observe the heavens and the publication of Kepler's Astronomia Nova. Simon Page wasn't actually hired by the IYA 2009 organizers to design posters for the event; instead, he was inspired by the project and decided to make the promotional works on his own. When the IYA 2009 staff found his works online, they jumped at the opportunity to use them in an official capacity.

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Page has since been featured in leading design publications like Creative Review and the New York Times, but it was never his plan to work in graphic design. Originally from the United Kingdom, Page graduated university with a degree in applied mathematics. He then worked in London's financial sector before moving into programming and database development. With this new work came a need for well-designed presentations, which led him to his current pursuits.

In a recent interview with the design blog Grain Edit, Page discussed how his mathematics background influences his work:

I think maths has inspired me hugely and influenced more geometric designs than I probably would of created otherwise. I also think a lot of artists, like myself, subliminally use mathematics in their creations - such as the golden ratio for creating eye candy layout designs.

I find it very satisfying getting mathematically correct proportions when designing something like a logo, for example. But for me the main connection between math and design is pure and simple, it's geometry. The golden ratio is probably one of the most popular examples of math and design coming together but look back at the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, for instance, he used mathematics all the time in his art. I also believe some of the best designers work with math, in a number of aspects, even though they probably do it completely subconsciously.

You can check out the rest of his interview with Grain Edit and see some more examples of his work here.

Alice's adventures in algebra: Wonderland solved

(via)

What would Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland be without the Cheshire Cat, the trial, the Duchess's baby or the Mad Hatter's tea party? Look at the original story that the author told Alice Liddell and her two sisters one day during a boat trip near Oxford, though, and you'll find that these famous characters and scenes are missing from the text.

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The 19th century was a turbulent time for mathematics, with many new and controversial concepts, like imaginary numbers, becoming widely accepted in the mathematical community. Putting Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in this context, it becomes clear that Dodgson, a stubbornly conservative mathematician, used some of the missing scenes to satirise these radical new ideas.

Delaunay tetrahedralisation ...?

(via wired)


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Gadget Lab Hardware News and Reviews

Amazing Software Turns Cheap Webcam Into Instant 3D Scanner"

We ALL have to do this!!!

An interesting offer from ASPEX



I had my doubts about this; I got an offer from ASPEX corporation to let people get free scanning electron micrographs of just about anything. They make a desktop SEM, and all you have to do is fill out a form and mail it in with your sample of a dead bug or a microchip or bacon, and presto, within a few weeks they'll have it scanned in and the image available on their website.

I asked them if they knew how many readers I have, and they said no problem, they can handle it.

Huh.

Well, you heard them. Scavenge your trash cans, dig into your local sources of vermin and oddments, and send them in. I'm thinking this could be really fun for any school teachers out there — you could have the whole class looking for interesting specimens to zoom in on. You can see their current galleries for ideas.

Even if you don't like spiders ...

you have to admit this guy (Phidippus princeps) is pretty cute. Many more on the
Jumping Spiders of Oklahoma Flickr site.

The Consequences of Plagiarism...

Man! SIAM is PISSED.

This page reports on the results of an investigation of alleged plagiarism of an article published by SIAM. The evidence leaves no doubt that the plagiarism did indeed occur. Moreover, we have learned of multiple other cases of plagiarism appearing under the names of the same plagiarizing authors.

PLAGIARIZED ARTICLE
M. Sreenivas and T. Srinivas. Probabilistic Transportation Problem (PTP). International Journal of Statistics and Systems, v. 3, n. 1, pp. 83-89, 2008.
Plagiarized from
James Luedtke and Shabbir Ahmed. A Sample Approximation Approach for Optimization with Probabilistic Constraints. Preprint posted to Optimization Online and submitted to SIAM Journal on Optimization, 15 September 2007. Revised version published in SIAM Journal on Optimization, v. 19, n. 2, pp. 674-699, 2008.