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Friday, July 10, 2009

Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project


Margaret Wertheim

TheHyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project is a riotous colourful collection of crocheted coral reefs from thousands of volunteers around the world. It is a manifestation of the Great Barrier Reef. Australian twin sisters Margaret and Christine Wertheim launched the project to honour the fragility of the world’s coral reefs.
As it turns out, the corals, anemones, kelps , sponges etc that live in the reef have hyperbolic geometric structures: shapes that mathematicians, until recently, thought did not exist outside of the human imagination.It wasn’t until 1997 that Daina Taimina, a mathematics researcher at Cornell who had learned to crochet as a child in Latvia, realized that by continually adding stitches in a precise repeating pattern she could create three-dimensional models of hyperbolic geometry. "For the first time mathematicians could, as Ms. Wertheim said, “hold the theorems in their hands.”









11 comments:

  1. I have always wanted to crochet and have tried several times to learn but my fingers are just so uncoordinated and I always lose count! This is one craft that I just have to sit back and admire other peoples work :o(

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  2. Fabulous crochet work there. I ltried to learn during my school days and nothing came out of it.

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  3. bestest buddie!
    all I can say is AWESOME!

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  4. These are really nice! I remember seeing an exhibit of the same in one of the malls here... I wonder if it's from the same group..?

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  5. Wow I love those. I do crochet and knit but I have never made anything as pretty and interesting as that. Just the same old blankets and booties. lol Thanks for sharing those with us.

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  6. This is out of this world! Holy moly, that is so cool!

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