John Snow
I write code for mathematical art to relax from work. The mathematics is refreshing. The coding is relaxing. Producing a mathematical work that can be appreciated by a general audience is rewarding.
This may not be crazy, but it is definitely irrational. The image pictures 625 bits in the binary expansion of the square root of 2 displayed in a spiral beginning at the bright spot in the center. Dark blocks correspond to 1s, and light blocks correspond to 0s. I first created a grid of black and white squares representing bits and following a pattern like the Ulam spiral and then "painted" the grid with a patch matching algorithm, taking paint strokes from van Gogh's "Starry Night."
A random binary operation on [-1,1] is generated using functions from precalculus. Then parametric equations are used to map this binary operation to a function on the surface of a torus. Values of this function are interpreted as colors to paint the torus, and the result is projected onto this 64 sided polyhedral approximation of a torus.