Oh, if only my math teacher could have been Donald Duck! Unfortunately, back in the day, I was put in the corner with a dunce hat for all the teaching that didn't crack open my cranium. Nowadays, in schools you'll have courses that blend and overlap as recent teaching strategies have recognized that not everyone learns in exactly the same way. In my previous blog, I wrote about how integral math is to art and design. How would music be as we know it without mathematics? Oh, to have had art and music in my math class; that would have been heaven! Don't be square and check out this link and see what Donald Duck has to say about the great adventures that can be had in Math Magic Land. You won't regret it! Around about the 7 minute mark you will find a nice explanation of the Golden Rectangle, but I recommend that when you have the time to view it in its entirety.
Geodesic Terrarium
Glass with bronze finish aluminum
Restoration Hardware
www.restorationhardware.com
As a former art teacher, I was always dismayed by students who claimed that "they couldn't draw a straight line." What is a geodesic dome but a network of straight lines? These were generally left brain individuals who at an impressionable age were told they were "no good at art". I always tried to dispel that destructive belief and sow seeds of inspiration that we are all capable of artistic creations on many levels and in many ways.
Polyhedron
polished stainless steel
Restoration Hardware
www.restorationhardware.com
The polyhedron is a geometric solid in three dimensions with flat faces and straight edges. This shape has fascinated mankind since antiquity, though it fell out of favor in the middle ages. Revived once more in the Renaissance, interest since then has not flagged. I like throwing these up on a bookcase or tucked in a corner for a little intellectual stimulation and titillation.
Raimond Lamp by Raimond Puts
stainless 'spring steel"
distributed by B & B Italia/Moooi
www.moooi.com
Oh those Dutch! Always ahead of the design game, definitely in outer space while the rest of us mortals muddle around on the ground. This chandelier is a perfect recipe composed of mathematical ingredients and lit by tiny LED lights. Puts lives on a houseboat with his painter wife in Amsterdam. He is a self-taught designer, and at the ripe age of 70 (yes!) presented this light at the 2009 Milan furniture fair. It was the star of the show. He says, "My thoughts are in measurements. Before I start anything I need to produce precise drawings." That's always been my inclination when starting an interior design project. I like to measure everything and then start adding, multiplying, dividing and subtracting. I no longer believe that I'm "no good at math" - I just didn't have the right teacher!
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