“I’ve Got a Coral Reef, Too” and will include different Drawing more people into geometry is something
artists’ interpretations. Dr. Sarah-Marie Belcastro welcomes. A young, ener-
All of a sudden, craft, math, and art are coming getic assistant professor at Smith College and the
together in ways that no one could have predicted. co-director of the Hampshire College Summer Studies
Or, as Wertheim puts it, “crafts have become mecha- in Mathematics program, she bewails the state of
nisms for making really interesting art.” On the other university geometry programs. “We’re lucky if a given
side of the Atlantic, University of Bristol researchers institution has one undergraduate geometry course,”
Drs. Hinke Osinga and Bernd Krauskopf are finding she points out. Her homepage, toroidalsnark.net, has
out the same thing. Like Taimina, Osinga originally a fascinating collection of links to examples of math-crocheted in her spare time, but she and Krauskopf ematical knitting, crocheting, and fiber arts, and is one
realized that they could apply it to their research. The of the best resources on the state of this emerging field.
result was a crocheted Lorenz manifold, which is a Belcastro knits things most people only vaguely
representation of chaos in the famous Lorenz system. remember from high school or college math classes:
The Lorenz manifold is an example of a compli- three-holed toruses, Klein bottles, and projective
cated surface that shows how chaos arises in a planes. Her Klein bottle hat looks like something
system that changes in time. Osinga and Krauskopf surrealist fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli would
have sent out on the runway, and she points out
that math influences fashion more than we may
“It was important to us that think. Every time you slip on a bias-cut dress, you’re
paying homage to Madeleine Vionnet, who invented
anyone should be able to cutting across the grain of fabric for superior drape
and considered herself a geometrician.
repeat our creation.” The confluence of fashion and math is making
waves in the book world, too. Belcastro and her
crafting partner are working on a proposal for a book
develop computer methods to find and visualize on mathematics and fiber arts, aimed at crafters
such surfaces. (Osinga gives an example: “Such a and mathematicians. Knitting Nature, a book by
surface may consist of all possible positions and Norah Gaughan, was just published this past summer
velocities of a spaceship such that it reaches a by Stewart, Talbori and Chang, and features skirts,
specific point.” The work has applications in laser sweaters, shawls, and shrugs inspired by starfish,
dynamics and neurological research as well.) tortoise shells, and honeycombs. (The intersection
While their work centers on computer methods, of knitting and math seems to be “out there in the
the crochet project was “driven by the need to see air,” as she puts it.) Next year will see the arrival of
and feel the real thing ... we realize now how much a long-awaited book of patterns edited by Sabrina
artistic value the crocheted Lorenz manifold has.” Gschwandtner, the founder of knitknit.net, an art and
The Lorenz project turned out to be an inspiration crafting zine that has printed patterns for geodesic
for artists and a great public outreach tool. It’s hats and ASCII weaving.
striking how eagerly these mathematicians share While all these books may have seemed com-
their processes, true to the open source roots pletely on the fringe a few years ago, the timing
of crafting. “It was important to us that anyone may be just right. Geometry has arrived. Craft is
should be able to repeat our creation, but we were cool again. And maybe those math classes will
actually worried that nobody would try,” admits start filling up now. ×
Osinga, so they offered a bottle of champagne to
the first person to crochet another manifold. For more images and resources, see
She shouldn’t have been nervous; they got three craftzine.com/go/geometry.
responses in two weeks. “We learnt how the use of
handcraft for visualization makes complex mathemat- My Brain on Acid, a huge orange symmetrical hyperbolic plane, 30cm in
ics extremely accessible to the general public,” she diameter, by Christine Wertheim of the Institute For Figuring. >>
says. “It serves as an eye-opener to people who
thought mathematics wasn’t for them.” Arwen O’Reilly is staff editor of CRAF T.
