Off Topic: Mathematical Division

[gunug]

This fractal pattern, called a Menger's Sponge, was made by Dr. Jeannine Mosley and her, undoubtedly, thousands of assistants.  66,048 business cards, how many do you have in your wallet?

QUOTE

Menger’s Sponge - named for its inventor Karl Menger and sometimes wrongly called Sierpinski’s Sponge – was the first three dimensional fractal that mathematicians became aware of. In 1995 Dr Jeannine Mosely, a software engineer, set out to build a level 3 Menger Sponge from business cards. After 9 years of effort, involving hundreds of folders all over America, the Business Card Menger Sponge was completed. The resulting object is comprised of 66,048 cards folded into 8000 interlinked sub-cubes, with the entire surface paneled to reveal the Level 2 and Level 3 fractal iterations.

For more info: http://www.machineproject.com/

[Parker]

how do you manage to make that out of business cards?
they have to be glued together (which you would think would be cheating)

20 LEFT GUNUG!!!

[Paddy]

I thought that they must have glued them too, Parker - until I got to the bottom of the page linked to the link above:

http://theiff.org/oexhibits/paper06.html

Scroll down - right at the bottom they have the instructions - including a PDF download - no glue at all. I'll try it tomorrow. (have to find 6 business cards I don't want anymore!)

QUOTE

To make a cube out of six business cards, first take two cards and place them across each other at right angles, centering them as nearly as possible. Fold the flaps of the bottom card down over the top card. Turn them over and repeat. Pull the two cards apart. Six of them can be assembled as shown below to make a cube. All flaps must be on the outside of the finished cube.

Two cubes can be linked by positioning them as shown. Take the two flaps on one face and tuck them under the corners of the two flaps on the adjacent face of the other cube. The joint is surprisingly strong! You can keep adding cubes like this to build any structure you can think of.

[Parker]

wanna try it paddy?

[krissel]

Interesting.

But some of the drawings have improper/incomplete perspective and make me cringe.

Like this one:

[gunug]

Well she's a computer person and mathematician; she probably used a computer to generate the illustration.  

[krissel]

Yeah, I figured as much, but it still makes my visual sense shudder.  

[gunug]

Hey Krissel - Different artist, different media; you might not like this either:



A guy named Derek van Westrum has had this tattoo since 1990; this was a follow up on Boing-boing to the other story!

[Frances144]

None, absolutely none!

That is what happens when you live in the middle of nowhere, never more than 4 miles from the sea/ocean (depending on which side you are), with no fast food joints, no chain stores and the nearest pub is 45 minutes away.

I love it here!

[krissel]

QUOTE(gunug @ Aug 28 2006, 02:09 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hey Krissel - Different artist, different media; you might not like this either:

 

Perspective is off on that one, too, but I suppose he could flex his muscle and alter the appearance.

 

[gunug]

I freely admit to having a little anti-tattoo preference but I still am finding it difficult to imagine a scenario in which a man has a mathematical figure tattooed on his arm.  "Mom", "Semper Fi", (Insert the name of the girl you love here); how do you reach a point where you're out drinking and have this done!  Oh, well!