Critical Pointmathematical Bridges

physicsworld.com Comment: Robert P Crease Critical Point Mathematical bridges Physicists should learn from the wife-and-husband team now in the Depart- ment of Mathematics at the University of mathematics community’s Auckland, whose work includes a crochet annual Bridges conferences, version of Lorentz’s equations describing the behaviour of chaotic systems. says Robert P Crease Other talks concern quilting, the physics of tops, 4D geometry, the architecture of Mathematicians from around the world mosques, the mathematics of juggling and will be converging on the Korean capital torus-knot carbon nanotubes – structures of Seoul next month to attend the largest made of beads that could also be made of international conference in the mathemati- carbon atoms. One speaker will also unveil cal community. Held every four years, the the first ever sculpture whose symmetry is International Congress of Mathematicians the same as that of a “quaternion group”. (ICM) attracts several thousand participants. One highlight is the announcement Hinke OsingaThe and Bernd Krauskopf, University of Aucklandcritical point of the Fields medal, which is regarded as To me the Bridges events are fascinating. the highest award a mathematician can But why can physics not do something simi- achieve and is dubbed (along with the Abel Linked in Art meets maths in this crochet Lorentz lar? After all, its bridges with artistic and Prize) the “mathematician’s Nobel”. model to be presented at the Bridges conference. other creative disciplines already exist. As But elsewhere in Seoul, another event Hart puts it, by creating bridges to painting, will be unfolding at the same time, called M C Escher). The Bridges meetings are now sculpture, poetry and dance, mathemati- Bridges: Mathematical Connections in the conferences on mathematics and art. cians can reach out to non-mathematicians Art, Music, and Science. Held annually, the Sarhangi’s background in theatre is who do not understand the creative and Bridges conferences are much smaller than essential to the success of the Bridges con- artistic side of the subject. In fact, the traf- the ICM but are far more diverse, with par- ferences. “Theatre involves making con- fic on those bridges, he says, goes both ways. ticipants crossing from maths into sculp- nections with the audience that go beyond “Ideas from mathematics get visualized or ture, painting, weaving, tiling, theatre, just the script,” he says. “So at Bridges, I – inspire artists, while in the other direction music and even dance. In a shrewd move to and the other three board members – want the desire to create or engineer an art work boost public attention, the ICM’s planners the conference attendees to get more than brings up math problems.” have invited the Bridges conference to be a just the content of the papers, but to have What is more, the Bridges conferences satellite event to their own. Much of what an enjoyable experience that integrates have given birth to their own community, mathematicians do is not usually that com- art, dance, and other performances.” To mainly of people in mathematics depart- prehensible to the public, and Bridges will encourage speakers to improvise their ments with artistic interests who attend provide good “eye candy” for the media. talks, he publishes the proceedings in the conferences to see what others are advance of the conference. working on. The Bridges community has Beyond the script This year’s Bridges conference is being also spawned a spin-off of smaller events The driving force behind Bridges is Reza held at the relatively new Gwacheon that begin this autumn called MoSAIC: Sarhangi, a mathematics professor at Tow- National Science Museum, the largest Mathematics of Science, Art, Industry, and son University in Maryland. Originally from science museum in Asia. Special events Culture. A joint project with Berkeley’s Iran, he worked as a drama teacher, play- include evenings devoted to music, theatre Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, wright and set designer in the 1980s while and film; a giant Zometool ball-and-stick it consists of a series of mathematics–art fes- studying mathematics at Pars University in construction; and dance and mime perfor- tivals and will bring the Bridges spirit to a Tehran. During the 1990s, after Sarhangi mances. George Hart – a colleague of mine larger audience over the next academic year. became a mathematics professor at South- at Stony Brook University – plans to stage The first will be held at Berkeley in Octo- western College in Kansas, he attended one of his signature “barnraisings” – a large ber, with subsequent festivals at Columbia small gatherings of people exploring con- mathematical sculpture to be put together University in New York, the University nections between mathematics and art. by a community of participants, at Seoul’s of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and at Bubbly, energetic and visionary, Sarhangi Mathlove Museum, one of the world’s few Portland, Boulder and Towson. An art saw more potential in the gatherings than museums devoted to mathematics. exhibition will be shipped from each festi- their initiators did. He therefore created a Featured speakers at Bridges, too, have val to the next, and involve local presenters non-profit corporation to manage the con- crossover appeal. These include the US and an audience that might not attend the ferences, gave them academic respectabil- computer scientist Alan Kay, a Turing annual Bridges conference. It is surely pos- ity by publishing printed proceedings, and Award winner and a creator of the mod- sible for physicists to follow the lead of the established an active board of directors. In ern computer; the French mathematician mathematicians – after all, it is only a ques- 1998 he staged the first of a series of larger Cédric Villani, a Fields medallist and direction of seeing the value of an institution that and more ambitious meetings at South- tor of the Henri Poincaré Institute, whose sets out to widen and cement them. western, and organized subsequent events flamboyant dress and demeanour earned ● http://bridgesmathart.org/bridges-2014 at places of interest to mathematicians and him the nickname “the Lady Gaga of math- artists, such as the University of Granada ematics”; the artist and mathematician Robert P Crease is a professor in the Department of in Spain, the Banff Centre in Canada, Lon- Thomas Banchoff, whom Salvador Dalí Philosophy, Stony Brook University, US, and don’s Institute of Education, and Leeu- once consulted about the fourth dimension; co-editor-in-chief of Physics in Perspective, warden in the Netherlands (the birthplace of and Hinke Osinga and Bernd Krauskopf, a e-mail [email protected] Physics World July 2014 17.

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