Creativity in mathematics

Mathematicians have always felt a strong creative aspect in their subject, but only in recent years has the flowering of connections between mathematics and the arts made this aspect apparent to the general public. This collection of three articles explores some of the various ways in which art and beauty appear in mathematics.

Mathematics and Mime

In "Envisioning the Invisible", Tim Chartier describes how the performing arts can be used to capture mathematical concepts...In one of Chartier's mime sketches, he gets the audience to visualize the one-dimensional number line as a rope of infinite length.....

Mathematics and Music

How does the brain sometimes fool us when we listen to music, and how have composers used such illusions?....How can math help create new music?...

Mathematics and Visual Art

...The forms emerging from this iterated function system are fractals. By serendipity, the article on music by Don et al employs some of Barnsely's work on fractal images to produce new music. Using Barnsley's Iterated Function Systems formulas, the authors created fractal images of a fern and of Sierpinski's triangle and used these images to create notes for musical compositions...

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Eureka! A Theater Play About Math?

When Marshfield math teacher Jean Kelley suggested last year that her friend Spring Sirkin produce a play about mathematics, Sirkin was skeptical.

“I didn’t think math concepts would naturally lend themselves to dramatic situations,’’ said Sirkin, whose Boston-based Chamber Theatre Productions tours the country with plays that support middle and high school instruction.

“We’ve always focused on the literature curriculum,’’ Sirkin said. “But we constantly ask teachers for feedback on what they’re reading and what they need help with. We were looking for something a little different, and when we polled teachers across the country, they overwhelmingly asked for a math play.’’

With Kelley as her consultant, Sirkin put out a call last spring to several play wrights to see what they might come up with. “Eureka!’’ by Shaun Wainwright-Branigan, jumped out at her right away.

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(Image credit: 10best.com)