03 Oct

Arches and Sangaku in Memorial Hall

Housing the largest undergraduate dining hall, a lecture hall, a student bar, classrooms, music rooms and more, Mem Hall is almost always bustling with student activity. Unlike other buildings on Harvard’s campus however, the architectural style of Annenberg Hall is unique, a fusion of New England brick with gothic arches, cathedral-like stained glass, and detail-rich ornamentation. Although a mathematical perspective can shed insight on many facets of the building, two areas of particular interest can be seen housed within the ceiling structure of the 9000-square-foot great hall. 

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03 Oct

Illuminating Angles: Preserving Artwork Through Math

Lacey Hines and Katja Diaz-Granados

In 2010, Harvard University broke ground on the three year long renovation project to merge its three art museums – The Fogg Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum – under one roof. Architects not only faced the difficult task of building a structure large enough to fit such extensive collections, but they were further constrained by curators’ unique desire to exhibit paper-based drawings and canvas paintings side by side in the same gallery.  

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03 Oct

The Behavior of Concrete Stripes and Lattices

Harvard’s new Smith Campus Center opened less than a month ago, and ever since then I’ve done most of my studying there. While the main Harvard Commons area is all brand-new wood and glass, the building’s main corridor is dominated by large, exposed concrete walls. While exiting the building one day, I noticed that these walls have a particular and peculiar design to them which consists of parallel lines and rows of holes spaced two feet apart. Below are a few pictures of the concrete that I took last week. These lines are either vertical, horizontal, or measured to be at 45 degrees.

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30 Sep

Perfect Alignment in Reflections

These images were taken during the summer of 2017 when I attended the Biennale in Venice on an exhibition in the main pavilion section, “Viva Arte Viva,”  of the Biennale. This exhibit – WeltenLinie (One in a Time) – by Alicja Kwade uses powder-coated steel, mirror, stone, bronze, aluminum, wood, and petrified wood. The objects are placed on either side of mirrors so that as the viewer walks past, the actual object is replaced by the reflection of another, perfectly lining up as the viewer moves past to create the illusion of a whole object, except with different materials making up each the reflected and actual objects.

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14 Apr

Call for Puzzles

Hey, I have recently become problem editor for the undergraduate Math Horizons magazine of the Mathematical Association of America. So I’d love if you have problems/mathematical puzzles to submit to the column. The official submission blurb follows, and of course you will be credited in the Magazine.

The Playground features problems for students at the undergraduate and (challenging) high school levels. Problems or solutions (including more elegant or extended solutions to Carousel problems) should be submitted to MHproblems@maa.org or MHsolutions@maa.org, respectively. Paper submissions may be sent to Glen Whitney, ICERM, 121 South Main Street, Box E, 11th Floor, Providence, RI 02903 . Please include your name, email address, and school or institutional affiliation, and indicate if you are a student. If a problem has multiple parts, solutions for individual parts will be accepted. Unless otherwise stated, problems have been solved by their proposers.

10 Apr

Gengzhi Goblets

One might think that having produced prototypes of the Gengzhi Goblets, our work is just about done to produce sufficient quantity (roughly 300 of each) to serve as G4G13 giveaways. The question comes down to materials and expense. If the Gengzhi Goblets are actually to be used as measuring cups, then they need to be made from a food-safe material.

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