Fractals and Sculptures

Sunday, June 8th, 2008 | Exhibits

Another exhibit idea, another exploration of “Math in Nature”. This tree is constructed of one part . The tree is made in an iterative manner, the recipe is
1. scale down the part
2. add the scaled down parts to every open end.
3. do this over and over again.

The climbing structure I have in mind for our “Geometry Playground” exhibition would have more branches, just a simple drawing for a start. I added a lot of detail to one branch (on the table). It’s fascinating to come closer and closer and discover more and more tiny details (see last picture).

This tree has 10 iterations, each one is a different color. Each iteration has 3 times more parts than the one before: 1 trunk, 3 big branches, 3*3=9 smaller ones, then 3*3*3=27 smaller ones, etc (I don’t show all the small twigs in the drawing).

I imagine visitors climbing but also building (at the table). They add twigs or new iterations, and go down to a scale where they need a magnifying glass to build. In the drawing the twigs are 12 times smaller than the trunk.

Small scale exhibit