Science, Art and Geometrical Imagination

From the geocentric, closed world model of Antiquity to the wraparound universe models of relativistic cosmology, the parallel history of space representations in science and art illustrates the fundamental role of geometric imagination in innovative findings. Through the analysis of works of various artists and scientists like Plato, Durer, Kepler, Escher, Grisey or the present author, it is shown how the process of creation in science and in the arts rests on aesthetical principles such as symmetry, regular polyhedra, laws of harmonic proportion, tessellations, group theory, etc., as well as beauty, conciseness and emotional approach of the world.Comment: 22 pages, 28 figures, invited talk at the IAU Symposium 260 "The Role of Astronomy in Society and Culture", UNESCO, 19-23 January 2009, Paris, Proceedings to be publishe

Industrial product design by using two-dimensional material in the context of origamic structure and integrity

Thesis (Master)--Izmir Institute of Technology, Izmir, 2004Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 115)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and English.xiii, 118 leavesThroughout the history of industrial product design, there have always been attempts to shape everyday objects from a single piece of semi-finished industrial materials such as plywood, sheet metal, plastic sheet and paper-based sheet. One of the ways to form these two-dimensional materials into three-dimensional products is bending following cutting. Similar concepts of this spatial transformation are encountered in the origami form, which has a planar surface in unfolded state, then transforms to a three-dimensional state by folding or by folding following cutting. If so, conceptually it may be useful to think of one-axis bending, which is a manufacturing technique, is somewhat similar to folding paper.In this regard, the studies in the scope of computational origami, which light the way for real-world problems such as how sheets of material will behave under stress, have applications especially in .manufacturing phase. of industrial product design.Besides manufacturing phase, origami design is also used as a product design tool either in .concept creating phase. (in the context of its concepts) or in 'form creating phase' (in the context of its design principles).In this thesis, the designing of industrial products, which are made from sheet material, is presented in a framework that considers the origami design. In the theoretical framework, evolutionary progression of origami design is discussed briefly in order to comprehend the situation of origami design in distinct application fields.Moreover, the elements, principles, basics of origami design and origamic structures are generally introduced. The theoretical framework is completed with the descriptions of the concepts on origami design and origamic structures. In the practical framework, typical applications that have origamic structures in distinct industrial product fields are exemplified. Furthermore, sheet materials and their bending process are taken up separately. By means of its excessive advantages, sheet metal bending is particularly emphasized. The practical framework is completed with several case studies base on sheet metal bending. Finally, the study is concluded with the evaluation of the origamic-structured product in respect of good design principles. Furthermore, designing by considering origami design is recommended to designer to design a good industrial product

Stereographic Visualization of 5-Dimensional Regular Polytopes

Regular polytopes (RPs) are an extension of 2D (two-dimensional) regular polygons and 3D regular polyhedra in n-dimensional (n≥4) space. The high abstraction and perfect symmetry are their most prominent features. The traditional projections only show vertex and edge information. Although such projections can preserve the highest degree of symmetry of the RPs, they can not transmit their metric or topological information. Based on the generalized stereographic projection, this paper establishes visualization methods for 5D RPs, which can preserve symmetries and convey general metric and topological data. It is a general strategy that can be extended to visualize n-dimensional RPs (n>5)

Teaching and learning mathematics humanistically

Some aspects of teaching and learning mathematics humanistically are considere

An Investigation of the Duality Between Art and Math

The following paper is an investigation of the relationship that exists between math and art. It argues the importance of integration between the two disciplines by shedding light on unrecognized characteristics within both. The paper provides examples of mathematical art and beautiful proofs which help unearth the potential of mixing math and art at an academic level