DAY 309

ARTISTIC ODDITIES

Math + Physics = ART?

CREATING BEAUTY THE LEFT-BRAINED WAY

I’m willing to guess that not too many people associate the words “math” and “physics” with the word “art.” Surprisingly, or perhaps not so, is that the image you see here is an example of all three of those words in action. In a freshman physics class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) called “Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism,” students are taught to define vector fields by entering formulas into an application (see caption), producing visualizations of these fields. The resulting images embody organic harmony and are intrinsically beautiful.

The application was originally designed to help students understand the complicated interactions of vector fields. It soon became apparent that these visualizations were not only useful for teaching, but in some cases they were aesthetically pleasing. Soon enough, a competition called “Weird Fields” was initiated to see who could create the most striking image.³⁸

So, now we see that physics and math, while not universally considered fun, can still produce beautiful, weird fields. —GRG