So I’m here at the Gaudino talk, wishing all if you were here as well! Anyway, we must get Satyan Devadoss to come talk with us, not only because his area of study is topology (which we got a glimpse into with Julia.s paper and presentation today) but also because he, too, is obsessed with the visual display of information, and makes these beautiful drawings of strange four-dimensional objects folded through 5-dimensional space with flexible sides and other things that make my brain hurt. And he is fascinated with the idea of bringing art and mathematics together in such a way that both lead to greater understanding and discoveries in their own fields through the exploration of the other. As he says (and he and I have had this conversation previously as well), most of the time with artists and mathematicians come together, the mathematicians end of making bad art, and the artists end up presenting math that is 300 years old and thinking it’s new and cutting edge.
Circa 1833-42. “Exhibiting its internal communications and the facilities and dangers to travellers therein.” Purports to be written by A Lady, but that seems unlikely. I’d say it’s probably authored by a man who’s perhaps spent too much time in the Region of Platonic Affection or the Tenting-Ground of Uncertainty. Poor guy. 
(click to enlarge, then zoom in. it’s worth it)
This is the song I mentioned in class.
You have to see this video – like mapping the void.
This is what David was talking about today in class:
http://www.secretsofmasons.com/masonic-symbols.htm
Scroll down for the map!
In this podcast segment, one kind of mapping — DNA analysis — meets conventional cartography and results in a pretty fascinating narrative. Also worth listening to to see (…hear) how the folks at Radiolab take a pretty static subject (historians looking at maps, researchers looking at DNA) and bring it to life in a vivid form of storytelling.
This is fascinating, red the whole article (linked below.) Thank you Sharron Macklin at OIT for sharing this with me.
Citation by Citation, New Maps Chart Hot Research and Scholarship’s Hidden Terrain
By Jennifer HowardImagine a Google Maps of scholarship, a set of tools sophisticated enough to help researchers locate hot research, spot hidden connections to other fields, and even identify new disciplines as they emerge in the sprawling terrain of scholarly communication. Creating new ways to identify and analyze patterns in millions of journal citations, a team led by two biologists, Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin D. West, and a physicist, Martin Rosvall, has set out to build just such a guidance system.
This network of disciplines shows how strongly different areas in the large JSTOR collection of scholarly journals are connected. Thicker lines represent more back-and-forth journal citations; thinner lines indicate less communication.
via Maps of Citations Uncover New Fields of Scholarship – Research – The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The clip from the most educational West Wing ever, in my opinion, which David also mentioned in class – ties in well to the article I posted too.
