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by Pearl Tesler
W here math is concerned, people seem to fall into one of two camps: the fanatics and the phobics. The fanatics have bumper stickers on their cars that say things like, "Lottery: a tax on math illiteracy" and "2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2." The phobics break into a sweat at just the thought of balancing their checkbooks. Fanatics and phobics alike stand to be inspired by the exhibition opening at the Exploratorium on October 6th. Mathematica: A World of Numbers and Beyond is a collection of all that is wild and wonderful in mathematics, from age-old paradoxes like the Möbius strip to the more modern subfield of topology. Visually rich and lauded as a classic of exhibition design, Mathematica helps dispel the pervasive myth of math as an abstract morass of numbers.
For example, many embittered students have suffered through grading
on a bell curve, a mystical statistical entity that, when applied
to the classroom setting, decrees that there will be mainly C students,
fewer B and D students, and just a sprinkling of A and F students.
But the bell curve isn't just some evil plot; it's a real and ubiquitous
natural phenomenon. In Mathematica, you can witness spontaneous
formations of an in-the-flesh bell curve, as 30,000 plastic balls
fall through a maze of 200 pegs into a series of slots, invariably
forming the same pattern.
Other features of the exhibition: an Image Wall of mathematical visualizations, a History Wall that documents the evolution of mathematics (mainly Western) since a.d. 1100, and interactive exhibits on minimal surfaces, multiplication, reflection and projection geometry, and celestial mechanics.
All images © Eames Office |
While
it showcases compelling artifacts of mathematical exploration, the
exhibition is an artifact unto itself, created in 1961 by famed
modernist designers, Charles and Ray Eames. This husband-and-wife
team is best known for their revolutionary architectural and industrial
design, including a legendary and much-copied 1946 bent plywood
chair that has come to represent an inspired, humanized approach
to mass production. The Eames's delight in mathematics is evoked
in one reviewer's description of the iconic chair: "The back
panel might be described as a rectangle about to turn into an oval,
the transformation being arrested at a point midway between the
two shapes."
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and the Mathematica(tm) software sold by Wolfram Research , Inc are completely unrelated. The similar names are purely coincidental.
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