Mona Nosrati

University Lecturer
Matematikksenteret, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Trondheim, Norway

My background is in mathematics, physics and education, and I have a particular interest in the cognitive processes involved in the learning of mathematics. I enjoy looking for different ways of presenting and representing mathematical ideas, visually and with a twist.

Group discount on haircuts
Group discount on haircuts
25cm x 25cm x 25cm
Wood and clay
2014

There are, up to isomorphism, two groups of order 4; the cyclic group Z4 and the Klein four group. In this work both of these groups are represented and effectively superimposed. The eyes and mouths of the faces follow the cyclic group structure (rotation of mouths and eyes in their sockets). The haircuts and eyebrows follow a Klein four structure where the operation for the haircuts is taking the symmetric difference. The eyebrow group has the members (down,down),(down,up),(up,down),(up,up), which behave like (+/-1, +/-1) under coordinate-wise multiplication. Each feature of the heads thus forms a group in its own right.