Mathematics and Love

Happy Valentines Day!

Not that it would be a special day for me but why not wish that every day for you is happy, so why not today also.
Valentines Day was my excuse to do a little web search on mathematics and love and these could be suggestions how a mathematician could spend Valentines Day date with the significant other.

It could start with a serious note discussing Mathematical model of love and happiness
and then reviewing A Heart Equation.. Or to follow some mathematician's has blog Math for Love.

To listen (or to read if hands and eyes are free) - The Mathematics of Love - a talk with John Gottman who started to study mathematics at MIT and first year was randomly paired with a roommate who was a psychologist.

Poetry  Mathematics of Love is online but Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics  can be pre-ordered on Amazon (it was first published in 2008).

Weaving the World: Simone Weil on Science, Mathematics, and Love - uses Simone Weil’s philosophy of science and mathematics as an introduction to the thought of one of the most powerful philosophical and theological minds of the twentieth century. Weil held that, for the ancient Greeks, the ultimate purpose of science and mathematics was the knowledge and love of the divine. Her creative assimilation of this vision led her to a conception of science and mathematics that connects the human person with not only the physical world but also the spiritual and aesthetic aspects of human existence.

Charle's Darwin's great great granddaughter named her debut novel The Mathematics of Love.

Lily Tuckš book I married you for happiness is the story about mathematician's wife

 Enough about love by Herve Le Tellier does not talk about mathematics but the author is a mathematician.

There is also  CD called after its title song The Mathematics of Love

As for a card - may be this will work?:

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/useless.jpg
and this math of love I think everybody remembers since elementary school, may be this was the very first equation you learned:

If this takes you to more intimate note, then there is a movie Rites of Love and Math you can watch online

Whatever you do - do not forget real, dark chocolate, of course, because of its health effects!

Here is chocolate truffle recipe from a blog Fat and Happy (I love this title!:-) )

After all - just in case you are up to it - can try binary code marriage proposal :-)

Hooks, Stitches, and Moebius

The show is over, but I had a chance to take some pictures, so here is my "recreation of this show, which draw a lot of attention and brought to the gallery in Williams Art Center, Lafayette College, Easton, PA many people, even those who are not usual guests in art galleries.

Vine at the entrance of the gallery made by Susan Huxley with participation from the public. It is based on endagered Pensylvania plant Lonicera hirsute commonly called Eaton hairy honeysuckle.

Susan Huxley started this piece from VHS tape as Lorenz manifold but one small mistake led to the others and Susan calls this "Cascading Failures:Lorenz Project". When it is displayed and lit up - does not look like a failure from artistic point of view :-)

This is another attempt to recreate Lorenz Manifold originally designed and crocheted by Hinke Osinga and Berndt Krauskopf - the author of thispiece is Tracy Jen.

sarah-marie belcastro's knitted hyperbolic pants and torus - the pattern how to make these pieces is in Making Mathematrics with Needlework

Hexaflexa cube by Patt Ashforth and Steve Plummer

The Soma Cube was invented in 1936 by Piet Hein. There are 240 solutions...

Crocheted fractal formula by Bernice-Marie Yates

Square Deal Reformation - designed and knit by Steve Plummer.

This design represents the smallest number (21) differently sized squares in which the big square can be split into. The only other alternative to this arrangem,ent would be mirror image of it.

The design of Sierpinski triangle was done by Jake Wildstrom. This piece is featured here with the crocheter Elinor Levy who added to the designand made this wonderful piece for the show.

This is just one of many Moebius bands in the exhibit knitted and crochetted by Bonnie Peters, Jacob Wildstrom, Elinor Levy, sarah-marie belcastro, Johanna Franklin, Jayne, Michiko Okaya, Patricia Talijan, Robin Phelps, Susan Monroy

Serotonin - Crochet makes me happy

Carpal - designed and knitted by Anna Mattison

Seascape - assemblage by Maria, crocheted by Gale Bellew, Michel Swengel- Regala, Eleonor Levy, Michiko Okaya, and Susan Huxley

Zebra fish embrio - knit by Julie Ehrlich

Kathleen Greco's Jelly Yarn's creations

Catch his eye - designed and crocheted by Hillary Miller, aditional pieces stitched by Bonnie Peters and Robin Phelps

Bacteriophage virus by Susan Burkhart

Natural Science Egg Study - knitted by Lisa Resser

Visitors were in awe about the Illusion Knitting

Sorry if I missed somebody ...

in case you missed these...

 James Moriarty - you heard this name, don't you? Most of us know him as a greatest adversary of Sherlock Holmes. But did you know that Moriarty was a mathematician of exceptional gifts?
In the latest Holmes flick, Sherlock Holmes: A game of shadows, they don’t just need their trusty revolvers and Holmes’s trademark prescient fight scenes, they also need to grasp some mathematics. (So far I have seen only the trailer which looks like too much Holiwood thriller...)
More about the movie here. In Wikipedia you can find some things about Professor Moriarty -
there has been speculations " that Doyle based his fictional character Moriarty on the American astronomer Simon Newcomb. Newcomb was revered as a multitalented genius, with a special mastery of mathematics, and he had become internationally famous in the years before Doyle began writing his stories. More pointedly, Newcomb had earned a reputation for spite and malice, apparently seeking to destroy the careers and reputations of rival scientists.^"
Would popularity of Sherlock Holms stories contributed in part of general public the perception of mathematicians (and mathematics) as something evil?
There are dark biographies of mathematicians - for example, one of André Bloch,Ted Kaczynski. But now there is the most recent sad story about Oxford University math professor who was suspected in murder of his friend and fellow professor Rawling. Here is this story from The Guardian (Friday, January 13, 2012). Some British newspapers say that "the two had an altercation over an academic issue that got physical". In Telegraph this story is put in more reasonable perspective - math professor was treated wrongly by the police. Prof Rawlings wife issued a statement that "it has been a ragic accident", most likely Steve Rowlings (who was one of a handful of figures who helped bring the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) – which will peer back 13 billion years in time – to the brink of construction) died of a sudden heart attack due to extreme stress he had lately.
 I enjoyed watching Inspector Lewis series on PBS which takes place in Oxford. May be this latest event will make it into another Inspector Lewis episode....
Talking about mathematics and movies - here is a nice link to the list of movies with math in them:
Mathematics goes to movies
In the latest issue of Cabinet Magazine (issue 44 Winter 2011/2012) there is a history of one of the most popular "math movies" Powers of Ten.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0fKBhvDjuy0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Some interesting applications of math:
The theorem that provides continuity for space, time, and airport maps
and The math behind screening tests.
But the exhibit I am putting on my calendar to see is in NYC - Chelsea -
Curved Crease Sculptures by Erik and Martin Demaine.

Erik Demaine explains curved creased sculptures and surprisingly old history of these sculptures.