Hiu Fung TAI

Statement

“I never noticed this before! So strange — but it actually works!” That moment of surprise is what I love most about mathematics. It continually inspires me, both as a writer and as a teacher, to create unusual analogies and stories. I hope viewers can share that same joy of discovery through this piece, especially when they realise this surprising yet undeniable fact: shapes that look completely different can have exactly the same area and perimeter. Area and perimeter seem so simple that we often assume there’s nothing new to explore. That’s why I created this — familiar ideas can still reveal something extraordinary. I would be delighted if it inspires you to pick up a pen and explore more shapes that behave in this wonderful way.

Artworks

Three seemingly very different shapes—yet surprisingly, they share something in common that should not be overlooked. Their areas? Identical. Their perimeters? Identical as well. Even more remarkable, these shared measurements are whole numbers: an area of 12 and a perimeter of 16—and every individual side and arc that composes the shapes is also a whole number. This sense of wholeness appears again in the lines connecting the shapes, like a gently flowing stream weaving them together. The work illustrates an essential idea in logic: Identical shapes will always have the same area and perimeter—but shapes with the same area and perimeter are not necessarily identical!