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LIFESTYLE & ARTS
Science, needlework mesh in space
Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - Bangor Daily News
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I
t was bound to happen, one of those mysterious and unlikely
juxtapositions that causes one to exclaim, "Why hasn't anyone thought
of that before!" Actually, it's been happening for as long as women
have been crocheting ruffled doilies, but only recently has it been
recognized for what it really is - and by a woman who does math, at
that. I'm talking about the convergence of science and needlework.
We're talking hyberbolic space, here. Well, actually, I'm not,
but Abigail Leonard, author of a recent Newsday article, is. She
conducted an interview with Cornell University mathematicians Daina
Taimina and her husband, David Henderson, who spent years trying to
figure out how to illustrate what hyperbolic space is.
Hyberbolic space, according to information I found on The Institute for
Figuring Web site, www.theiff.org, is "the geometric opposite of a
sphere." In other words, it looks - judging by the photo of Taimina's
crocheted model of hyperbolic space - like a head of hydroponically
grown Boston lettuce. Or like one of those insanely ruffled, and
highly starched, doilies my grandmother liked to crochet in the 1950s.
And all the time we thought she was making something pretty to place on
the dull gray plane of the Formica table top to relieve its pared down,
up-to-the-minute, post-WWII chrome modernity. Who knew?
According to the Web site: "For Isaac Newton and his followers,
physical space was ... endless, formless and flat. But in 1919
measurements of starlight bending around the sun showed that space is
intrinsically curved. In one recent model proposed by physicists, the
universe is shaped like a soccer ball." Once Taimina got it into
her head what hyperbolic shape looked like, the rest was easy. She
grabbed her crochet hook, some chunky yarn and started working in the
round, making double crochets, increasing many stitches in each round
to achieve the desired, not too droopy lettuce-leaf shape. The
Smithsonian grabbed one of Taimina's models for a scientific display,
and teachers and professors are clamoring for models faster than
Taimina can make them. My guess is that if the directions for
the hyperbolic space model were posted on the Web, crocheters would
jump on the bandwagon and produce models for every school, college and
university science department in the United States. Maybe even the
world. Crocheters can be like that. Or we could exhume our
grandmothers' ruffled doilies ... Snippets .
Hancock County Quilters will hold a business meeting, followed by a
weighted thread catcher project, at 10 a.m. Wednesday, April 6, at the
Fellowship Hall, Community of Christ Church, Ellsworth. Call 667-8795
for more information. . Quilt lovers headed to Boston this
summer may want to put a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts on the
itinerary. The exhibit, "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," will be on display
from June 1 to Aug. 21. The quilts, dating from the 1930s to 2000, are
made by several generations of African-American women, descendents of
slaves, who used the fabrics of their lives - corduroy, denim, cotton
sheets and worn clothing - and fashioned bed coverings that resemble
abstract paintings. Visit www.mfa.org to obtain more information, or
call (617) 267-9300. . The Internet is a truly awesome - maybe
even hyperbolic - space. I receive e-mail from women in Italy, Great
Britain, Canada and many parts of the United States who read By Hand
online. . Www.purseparadise.com is a good source for bone, metal, horn and enamel tatting shuttles. . Knitters interested in yarn from the Andes by way of Vancouver, Wash., may find www.knitpicks.com of interest. Ardeana Hamlin can be reached at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.
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