When you look at a work by artist Jackson Pollock, do you see a mess of squiggles that you think a child could paint or do you see fractal geometry at work?
If the last time you actively thought about maths was out of necessity to pass an exam at school, then you might be surprised at how much ‘secret’ maths is in the music, architecture and art around us.
Marcus du Sautoy, the Simonyi Professor for the public understanding of science, a professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford and a trumpet player, outlined some of his top ‘secret’ mathematicians in a keynote address at Euroscience Open Forum 2012 in Dublin today.
Du Sautoy was frustrated at school at having to choose between the "false dichotomy" of arts and science, and he noted that artists tend to be drawn to structures which are also of interest to mathematicians.
The first of his creators who used maths for effect was Olivier Messiaen, a composer who wrote a quartet based on prime numbers while he was a prisoner of war.
While many consider Bach’s symmetry when thinking about maths and music, Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time used prime numbers to instead create unease, explained de Sautoy, who described how the 17-note rhythm and 29-chord sequences seldom interlock.
“If you did this with a 16 and 24 it wouldn’t work, they would interlock too early,” he said.
Composers aren’t the only canny users of prime numbers: du Sautoy also described how cicada species in the United States have life-cycles based on prime numbers, possibly in a bid to avoid ‘interlocking’ with the life-cycles of predators.
Du Sautoy cantered through several more human ‘secret mathematicians’ including choreographer Rudolf Laban, who used maths and symmetry in his work, architect Le Corbusier, who sought to break symmetry with his designs and writer Jorge Luis Borges who explored the possible shape of the universe in his book The Library of Babel.
But maybe the most instantly recognisable of his secret mathematicians was Salvador Dali, who overtly used maths and explored shapes in his pictures, such as an unfolded hypercube in The Crucifixion and fractals in The Visage of War.
The Jackson Pollock link to maths is not so obvious, but his images lean on fractal geometry, which doesn’t get simpler as you get closer to it. Pollock would flick paint to create the work, acting as a “chaotic pendulum”, explained du Sautoy.
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