Welcome to this week’s Math Munch!

For this last Thursday of April, we’ll be taking a look at some recent posts from our facebook page. Craig Kaplan writes about “near miss” polyhedra, a Pythagorean gif takes us to an curious math blog, and we find a beautiful portrait of a great mathematician.  Let’s go!

Craig Kaplan

First is an article from a wonderful mathematician and mathematical artist by the name of Craig Kaplan. His name has popped up on Math Munch before (1, 2 ,3), in case it sounds familiar. You can check out Craig’s stuff on his website, Isohedral, or download his really great game, “Good Fences,” which I have on my iPhone.

What I really wanted to share, however was Craig’s writing on “A New Near Miss.” This is a polyhedron that almost is… but just isn’t. It looks pretty good, but it can’t be. You’ll have to read to see what I mean.

Up next, I found this little gif on our facebook page, and I absolutely loved it. It demonstrates the Pythagorean Theorem which says that as long as that’s a right triangle there, the big square on bottom is exactly as big as the two smaller squares combined. The animation shows you how to chop up the middle-sized square and recombine it with the small one to make the big one. I knew there were demonstrations/proofs like this, but this one opened my eyes to something I didn’t quite know before.

This gif sent me off on a journey through the internet to track down the source, and it led me to a site called Curiosa Mathematica. It’s a math blog featuring lots of random math goodies. There’s lots to see and get into (much like Math Munch). Here’s a quote I found there.  I hope you find something you like too.

Finally, I was really taken by this piece of art (below). It’s a portrait of French mathematician Henri Poincaré, and it was drawn by Bill Sanderson. I can’t find much info on Bill, but WOW the piece is so cool. I love how he’s surrounded by his mathematical creations. I was hoping he had done more, and I did find a couple more (below), but not all I had hoped for.

French Mathematician Henri Poincaré

Alan Turing

Isaac Newton

Have some illustrative talent? I’d love to see your mathematician’s portrait. Feel free to send us something… anything.

I hope you enjoy your weekend and find something tasty out there in the mathematical interwebs. Bon appetit!