A collaboration between a mathematician and an artist-geometer has resulted in some of the most mathematically sophisticated and aesthetically gripping animations ever seen in the field. Their visualizations of cutting-edge research in dynamical systems theory not only provide a dramatic new way of visiting mathematical worlds once seen only in the mind’s eye, but also point to a new era for the use of computer graphics in communicating and carrying out mathematical research.
The two collaborators are Etienne Ghys, a mathematician at the Ecole Normale Sup´rieure in Lyon, France, and Jos Leys, a Belgian graphic artist and engineer with strong mathematical interests. They have written an online animated exposition of an important new theorem Ghys has proved in dynamical systems theory.
Beautiful work. No surprise that the most ordered science can produce such images.
Now, if they can take a crack at the infinitely convoluted math on which quantum physics and string theory are based.
These are fields that are inherently counter-intuitive and I wonder if these folks could create a graphical representation that would help that.
Did you know there’s a direct correlation between the decline in Spirograph and the rise in gang violence? Think about it.
Oops: Knot Theory with no bikini picture.