Lecture: Mathematician Daina Taimina discusses hyperbolic planes and art in "From Math to Art"

Mathematician Daina Taimina will introduce the audience to what a hyperbolic plane is and how it took her from mathematics to art in unexpected ways.

Taimina is credited at being the first to employ crochet techniques to construct hyperbolic surfaces that vividly illustrate essential features of non-Euclidean geometry. Her idea was picked up by The Institute For Figuring and turned into the sensational world-wide ecological, Crochet Coral Reef project.

The Mathematical Association of America--which met in early January--awarded Taimiņa's "Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes" (AK Peters; 2009 the 2012 Euler Book Prize.

The Euler Book Prize is given to the author or authors of an outstanding book about mathematics. In the announcing the prize, her book was described as “a novel approach to geometry that has brought a whole new audience to mathematics. In this respect it has greater outreach potential than any book we have previously considered. But it is much more than that; it is perfectly capable of standing on its mathematical feet as a clear, rigorous, and beautifully illustrated introduction to hyperbolic geometry. It is truly a book where art, craft, science, and mathematics come together in perfect harmony.