Matthew Bajor and Bjoern Muetzel

Statement

Matthew Bajor: I am an undergraduate student at Eckerd College majoring in mathematics and visual arts. Because of my unique pair of studies, I am constantly looking for ways to connect them. Luckily if you look hard enough there is mathematics in every form of beauty you can think, and I want to make sure I show that. Bjoern Muetzel: I am a mathematician working in the area of low dimensional geometry and topology. I have always been fascinated by the intersection of math and art and especially by the numerous beautiful patterns found in nature. To convey and disseminate this enchantment, I organize geometry activities for children in nearby schools using a variety of geometric shapes and tiles.

Artworks

The truncated tetrahedron is one of the Archimedean solids. Curious about the effect, we made a stellated version of this solid and put mirrors on all of its inside faces. We then used a spherical camera to take a picture of the inside and transformed it using a stereographic projection. To our surprise we found this crystal in the image. The title is a reference to a poem by Arthur Rimbaud.