Thursday, October 20, 2005

The Art of Too Much Math

This is cool - an article discussing a steel sculpture representing a 3-D "shadow" of a 4-D solid designed by Penn State math professor Adrian Ocneanu.
The subject of the projection is a regular 4-dimensional solid of intermediate complexity, which Ocneanu calls an "octacube." It has 24 vertices, 96 edges and 96 triangular faces, which enclose 24 three-dimensional "rooms." Windows cut in faces allow the viewer to see within the structure, the same way that a window in a cubic room opens to the inside of the cube. Physically, the sculpture is a giant puzzle of 96 triangular pieces cut from stainless steel and bent into spherical shape.

An even cooler animation of the object can be viewed here.

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