2013 Joint Mathematics Meetings
Bih-Yaw Jin
Artists
Bih-Yaw Jin
Professor
Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University
Taipei, Taiwan
Statement
I am a chemist interested in the geometry inspired by graphitic structures. Using the angle weave of mathematical beading, I discovered that it is possible to construct approximate 3D structures of arbitrary fullerenes with only beads and strings. We can further show that these bead models are macroscopic valence sphere models of molecules.
Artworks
Super Buckyball of Genus 31
20”x20”x20”
plastic beads
2011
Joining with students and teachers of the Taipei First Girls High School in November 2011, we made two bead models of super buckyball, a polyhedron of genus 31. Each vertex in this model is itself a buckyball punched with three holes and then connects to three neighbored vertices by three shortest carbon nanotubes. We can also view structure as the second level Sierpinski buckyball, which can be extended arbitrarily to infinity.