The Synergistic
Dynamics of Art, Mathematics, & Science
An Interdisciplinary Project at Stowe Middle School
[©Frederick David Abraham, project contributors, and
sources]
Project Objectives
The
goal is to create a project in which we can combine the mathematics of
dynamical systems theory (also called "dynamics" or "chaos
theory"), art, and other disciplines to become motivated and educated to
learn science. The venue for doing this is as an enrichment course within the
Stowe Middle School, but instead of a course in the traditional sense of a
teacher with students, it is more of a cooperative effort to produce an
interactive artisitc-educational exhibit for the
Helen Day Art Center, which will serve as an educational model for others to
use as well: visitors to the exhibit, community courses, a portable version to carry
into other schools, virtual users of it as a cyberproject
available at this web site.
Thus one of the immediate
goals is to create a science exhibit for the Helen Day Art Center as a real and
a virtual exhibit. The real exhibit will consist of art on the plane
(pictures), in 3D (kinetic sculptures), and as interactive activities with a
computer. The virtual exhibit will consist of the representation of that
exhibit on this web site. This project is to be done by a variety of
contributors from the community (global and local), and from schools (ours, and
those in other nations). We have already collected some materials from the web,
and will explore more. Students and friends have already written some computer
programs. But we, here in the Stowe Middle School will do most of the exhibits,
and the project will revolve around our efforts. We have a school in the
Philippines and one in Russia to collaborate with us, which makes this project
a global as well as local cooperative effort.
We will start with considering
how patterns can be created, and we will start with a pattern called the spiral. This
project on the spiral will consist of figuring how we can draw sprials, how mathematics can draw spirals, and how nature
draws spirals. We will also do psychological research to see what makes them
beautiful. And we will consider what all these things (beauty, mathematics, and
nature) have to do with each other. This dynamical mathematics, art, and
science (the careful investigation of nature) are visual and intuitive. They
are easy and fun. They include fractal methods and art, which can be very
beautiful (see examples of six fractal
spirals).