Zachary Abel's Math Blog
Check out the latest addition to my sculpture page: Penny Pincher! Made with more than four thousand binder clips and two thousand pennies, this monstrosity stands at 35 pounds and just under 2.5 feet, but it is perfectly content standing on three flimsy-looking legs. The flat image above doesn t do justice to the three-dee-ness of Continue reading New Sculpture Writeup: Penny Pincher
If you re near Boston today (Friday) or tomorrow (Saturday), come check out MIT MoSAIC, a traveling festival, currently at the MIT Museum, celebrating Math from the perspectives of art, science, technology, and more. There are panels, presentations, workshops, and of course an extensive Math+Art exhibit from many contributing artists. A few of my recent sculptures Continue reading MIT MoSAIC This…
[This is post #28 in a mini-blog-post series for NaBloPoMo 2015. Jump to the first or previous post.] The scaffold I ve released this month is not the first I ve designed. Thanks to feedback from a number of workshops and dedicated, private play-testers (more on these tomorrow!), I ve been able to iteratively improve the scaffold s design Continue reading On the Origin of Scaffolds
[This is post #27 in a mini-blog-post series for NaBloPoMo 2015. Jump to the first2 previous, or next post.] In the last few days we ve singled out five subtle, independent tweaks to the initial Straws Thingy design. Why stop here, when there are so many other variations to consider?! First, I wanted each of our Continue reading Endless Variations on a Theme
[This is post #26 in a mini-blog-post series for NaBloPoMo 2015. Jump to the first, previous, or next post.] There s one more modification we can make that changes the arrangement of straws without significantly affecting the overall composition: swap the roles of long and short ends! We ve been sliding the short ends into the long Continue reading 32 Straws Thingys! Aaah!
[This is post #25 in a mini-blog-post series for NaBloPoMo 2015. Jump to the first, previous, or next post.] We ve been accumulating lots of variant Straws Thingys, all subtly different, but all just as symmetrical as the others. We saw two ways of messing with the 5 macroscopic tetrahedra themselves, and then we zoomed into Continue reading 4D Hypercube of Straws Thingys!
[This is post #24 in a mini-blog-post series for NaBloPoMo 2015. Jump to the first, previous, or next post.] We began describing Straws Thingy s shape as 5 intersecting tetrahedra, so it is fitting that the two asymmetries we ve identified so far (color scheme and mirror image) depend only on these tetrahedra. Yesterday s interloper, by contrast, Continue reading Triangle Jitterbug: Up to Eight…
[This is post #23 in a mini-blog-post series for NaBloPoMo 2015. Jump to the first, previous, or next post.] To finish yesterday s train of thought, how should you proceed if you wanted to make some mirror image Straws Thingys? You you could pull some trickery and print the scaffold in mirror image (do printers make Continue reading But Wait, There s More!
[This is post #22 in a mini-blog-post series for NaBloPoMo 2015. Jump to the first, previous, or next post.] If you step in front of a mirror, don t be alarmed if your Thingy looks a bit strange your Straws Thingy, that is. The Straws Thingy is not identical to its mirror image! In other words, it Continue reading Mirror Thingy on the Wall
[This is post #21 in a mini-blog-post series for NaBloPoMo 2015. Jump to the first, previous, or next post.] Knowing the color pattern around any one of the twelve faces (5-sided stars) of a Straws Thingy tells us exactly how the tetrahedra are colored, so it lets us reconstruct the entire color scheme. In other Continue reading About Faces