2021 Joint Mathematics Meetings
Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya
Artists
Statement
In the Weird Wonders of the World series, popular visual wonders such as the Möbius strip, Penrose triangle, infinite staircase and others are presented in a realistic context, as if they appeared in nature. While ancient Seven Wonders of the World were architectural constructions, made to demonstrate the people’s triumph over the Earth, the current artworks exhibit mind’s delight at discovering the puzzles of its own perception, either on the Earth or beyond it, and in accordance with nature. I use 2D and 3D computer graphics to show the natural beauty of these objects, in this way uniting the intellectual wonder of perceiving a mathematical concept with the aesthetical pleasure of viewing a beautiful image.
Artworks
In the present work I apply a model developed by a recent Nobel laureate Roger Penrose to the structure of the Solar System. I experiment with both projections and layer structure to transform spherical surfaces to cubes. The source of light is placed in the centre of the model whereas the planets are supposed to move in 3+ dimension space around it by conveyor-like trajectories with a constant speed. The relative sizes and weights of the planets are currently not taken in consideration and could be investigated in further developments of the model.