Henry Segerman (born 1979 in Manchester, UK) is an Associate Professor of [[mathematics at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma who does research in three-dimensional geometry and topology, especially three-manifolds, triangulations and hyperbolic geometry. [1]
He was the first person to publish a book on mathematical 3D printing, [2] and is also a recreational mathematician and mathematical artist with expertise in virtual reality. [3] His frequent collaborators include Vi Hart, Elisabetta Matsumoto and Saul Schleimer. [4] [5] [6]
Segerman received his Master of Mathematics (MS) at the University of Oxford (2001) and then his PhD at Stanford University (2007) for the dissertation "Incompressible Surfaces in Hyperbolic Punctured Torus Bundles are Strongly Detected" under Steven Paul Kerckhoff. [7]
He was a Lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin (2007–2010) and was a Research Fellow at University of Melbourne (2010–2013). He became an Assistant Professor at Oklahoma State University (2013–2018) and then an Associate Professor there in 2018 until the present. [5]
Segerman's research lends itself to mathematics with a strong visual component. [6] This led directly to his involvement with 3D printing. In 2016 he wrote the book Visualizing Mathematics With 3D Printing. [8] Laura Taalman in a review said, "Segerman's book is an inside tour of mathematics with breathtaking 3D-printed scenery." [8]
Mathematicians used to rely on wooden or plaster models to visualizing complex geometrical shapes. Nowadays, if they can be described mathematically, we can "print" them with 3D printers. [9] Segerman uses mathematical tools including quaternions, [10] Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries and stereographic projection to create instructions for 3D printers. [4] Sometimes the goal is to produce a work of art. [11] Sometimes it is to shed light on four-dimensional geometry [12] or some other field such as mathematical group theory. Sometimes it is both. [10] One of his sculptures depicts a set of monkeys joined together to form a 4-dimensional hypercube. [13]
Segerman's techniques help us visualize a four dimensional world. [14] Just as the frame of a cube can cast a shadow on a flat wall, Segerman makes analogous shadows of four dimensional objects via a 3D printer. [15] [12] Segerman has also explored kinetic artwork, designing mechanisms that move in unusual or seemingly paradoxical ways. [6] : 128
Segerman has appeared as a recreational mathematician [16] at Gathering 4 Gardner conferences [17] and is a frequent contributor to Numberphile. [18]
Combining his interests in mathematics and art he is one of 24 mathematicians and artists who make up the Mathemalchemy Team. [19]
In another foray into recreational mathematics Segerman founded Dice Lab with mathematical artist Robert Fathauer. Using computer search and help from fellow recreational mathematician Robert Bosch, they created a "numerically balanced" 120-sided die in the shape of a disdyakis triacontahedron. It is the "biggest, most complex fair die possible". [20] They concede that the die is "expensive and there’s no real use for it", but it's still theoretically interesting. [21]
Segerman does research in three-dimensional geometry and topology. Papers published in this area include:
A second major interest, with some overlap, is mathematical visualization & art. Papers published in this area include:
In geometry, a 4-polytope is a four-dimensional polytope. It is a connected and closed figure, composed of lower-dimensional polytopal elements: vertices, edges, faces (polygons), and cells (polyhedra). Each face is shared by exactly two cells. The 4-polytopes were discovered by the Swiss mathematician Ludwig Schläfli before 1853.
William Paul Thurston was an American mathematician. He was a pioneer in the field of low-dimensional topology and was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982 for his contributions to the study of 3-manifolds.
In mathematics, non-Euclidean geometry consists of two geometries based on axioms closely related to those that specify Euclidean geometry. As Euclidean geometry lies at the intersection of metric geometry and affine geometry, non-Euclidean geometry arises by either replacing the parallel postulate with an alternative, or relaxing the metric requirement. In the former case, one obtains hyperbolic geometry and elliptic geometry, the traditional non-Euclidean geometries. When the metric requirement is relaxed, then there are affine planes associated with the planar algebras, which give rise to kinematic geometries that have also been called non-Euclidean geometry.
A unit cube, more formally a cube of side 1, is a cube whose sides are 1 unit long. The volume of a 3-dimensional unit cube is 1 cubic unit, and its total surface area is 6 square units.
In mathematics, more precisely in topology and differential geometry, a hyperbolic 3-manifold is a manifold of dimension 3 equipped with a hyperbolic metric, that is a Riemannian metric which has all its sectional curvatures equal to −1. It is generally required that this metric be also complete: in this case the manifold can be realised as a quotient of the 3-dimensional hyperbolic space by a discrete group of isometries.
Algorithmic topology, or computational topology, is a subfield of topology with an overlap with areas of computer science, in particular, computational geometry and computational complexity theory.
Four-dimensional space (4D) is the mathematical extension of the concept of three-dimensional space (3D). Three-dimensional space is the simplest possible abstraction of the observation that one needs only three numbers, called dimensions, to describe the sizes or locations of objects in the everyday world. For example, the volume of a rectangular box is found by measuring and multiplying its length, width, and height. This concept of ordinary space is called Euclidean space because it corresponds to Euclid's geometry, which was originally abstracted from the spatial experiences of everyday life.
Daina Taimiņa is a Latvian mathematician, retired adjunct associate professor of mathematics at Cornell University, known for developing a way of modeling hyperbolic geometry with crocheted objects.
Geometric graph theory in the broader sense is a large and amorphous subfield of graph theory, concerned with graphs defined by geometric means. In a stricter sense, geometric graph theory studies combinatorial and geometric properties of geometric graphs, meaning graphs drawn in the Euclidean plane with possibly intersecting straight-line edges, and topological graphs, where the edges are allowed to be arbitrary continuous curves connecting the vertices; thus, it can be described as "the theory of geometric and topological graphs". Geometric graphs are also known as spatial networks.
The Geometry Center was a mathematics research and education center at the University of Minnesota. It was established by the National Science Foundation in the late 1980s and closed in 1998. The focus of the center's work was the use of computer graphics and visualization for research and education in pure mathematics and geometry.
Geometry is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is called a geometer. Until the 19th century, geometry was almost exclusively devoted to Euclidean geometry, which includes the notions of point, line, plane, distance, angle, surface, and curve, as fundamental concepts.
The following is a timeline of key developments of geometry:
Mathematics and art are related in a variety of ways. Mathematics has itself been described as an art motivated by beauty. Mathematics can be discerned in arts such as music, dance, painting, architecture, sculpture, and textiles. This article focuses, however, on mathematics in the visual arts.
Victoria "Vi" Hart is an American mathematician and YouTuber. They describe themself as a "recreational mathemusician" and are well-known for creating mathematical videos on YouTube and popularizing mathematics. Hart founded the virtual reality research group eleVR and has co-authored several research papers on computational geometry and the mathematics of paper folding.
Igor Rivin is a Russian-Canadian mathematician, working in various fields of pure and applied mathematics, computer science, and materials science. He was the Regius Professor of Mathematics at the University of St. Andrews from 2015 to 2017, and was the chief research officer at Cryptos Fund until 2019. He is doing research for Edgestream LP, in addition to his academic work.
New possibilities opened up by the concept of four-dimensional space helped inspire many modern artists in the first half of the twentieth century. Early Cubists, Surrealists, Futurists, and abstract artists took ideas from higher-dimensional mathematics and used them to radically advance their work.
Francis Bonahon is a French mathematician, specializing in low-dimensional topology.
Michael Kapovich is a Russian-American mathematician.
In three-dimensional hyperbolic geometry, an ideal polyhedron is a convex polyhedron all of whose vertices are ideal points, points "at infinity" rather than interior to three-dimensional hyperbolic space. It can be defined as the convex hull of a finite set of ideal points. An ideal polyhedron has ideal polygons as its faces, meeting along lines of the hyperbolic space.
Mathemalchemy is a traveling art installation dedicated to a celebration of the intersection of art and mathematics. It is a collaborative work led by Duke University mathematician Ingrid Daubechies and fiber artist Dominique Ehrmann. The cross-disciplinary team of 24 people, who collectively built the installation during the calendar years 2020 and 2021, includes artists, mathematicians, and craftspeople who employed a wide variety of materials to illustrate, amuse, and educate the public on the wonders, mystery, and beauty of mathematics. Including the core team of 24, about 70 people contributed in some way to the realization of Mathemalchemy.