Welcome to this week’s Math Munch! We’ve got a pair of new games for you to play later, but first I want to share something beautiful and impressive.

Ready for some mathematical art? The new issue of Hyperseeing begins with a review of Merete Rasmussen’s ceramic sculpture. Merete is a Danish artist who lives in London, and her recent work features complex and beautiful, smooth two-dimensional surfaces.

Editor Nat Friedman’s writeup begins with this wonderful quote by Rasmussen:

“I want to create a form that you can’t understand until you see the other side. You have to look at it for a while to realize how it is connected.”

Merete Rasmussen at work

A lot of mathematical work is done just trying to describe and understand the ideas or pictures in our head. Merete’s sculpture get us to do math as we try to understand the nature of her sculptural surfaces. How many sides do they have? How many edges? How many holes? I just love that.

The article is very enjoyable, and I encourage you to read the entire text, but what got me hooked, what completely mesmerized and inspired me, was a video about Merete’s work and process that I found referenced at the end of the article. The video is presented in dual screen, which is really fantastic, because just like Merete’s sculptures, you may need to view it a couple of times to catch all that’s going on.

I recommend the full video. I recommend full screen.

You can learn more about Merete Rasmussen and view more of her work at her website, mereterasmussen.com.

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OK, now on to a couple of new games.

Game About Squares

“Right from the start I was thinking about creating a simple game, with simple graphics and simple game design.” That’s what 26-yr old Andrey Shevchuk said about his recent creation, “Game About Squares.” You’ll find as you play, however, that these little puzzles can get oh so complicated, despite their simple presentation.

I love imagining how Andrey must have had to think creatively to keep developing his simple idea in new ways, and I love the way that the puzzles get us to think in new ways. All in all, this is just a wonderful game.

Oh, and thinking about the very viral 2048, Andrey had this to say,

“Squares are trendy.  Hexagons aren’t even close, let alone triangles.”

VAX!

That’s short for vaccine, in case you don’t know.  The Salathé Group recently released a game about vaccinations and fighting the spread of epidemics (previously). The game is called VAX!, and it’s based on a graph theory representation for the spread of disease. Take the tour and you’ll learn everything you need to play.

There’s also a module that explains herd immunity. That’s where random vaccines are used to isolate the potentially infected from potential carriers of the disease.

Bon appetit.  Dig in!