Programme - BRIDGES Conference London 2006

The Bridges Conference: Mathematical Connections
in Art, Music, and Science
Institute of Education London Knowledge Lab
August 4 – 9, 2006

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Programme of the Conference

The papers abstracts and programme schedule of talks and workshops are available to consult. Please note these are pre-conference draft versions which have not been corrected to the actual conference programme.

The session days were Friday August 4, Sunday August 6 and Monday August 7. Excursions took place on Saturday August 5 and Tuesday August 8. Wednesday August 9 was a special Family Day event.

Mornings: Plenary speakers

The plenary speakers were:

Jacqui Carey is a specialist in braidmaking. As a maker, she has exhibited and demonstrated throughout the world, including such places as the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. She is also a renowned teacher and has written seven books on the subject as well as many articles. Her research work covers a broad area, and has been the focus for three major exhibitions that she has organized, the most recent being BRAIDS AND BEYOND which toured the UK in 2003-4. Her work can be seen at www.careycompany.com .

Xavier De Kestelier and Brady Peters are members of the Specialist Modelling Group at Foster and Partners Architects in London. Architecture has become very reliant on computers, increasingly going beyond CAD/CAM to parametric design and dynamic systems. Xavier and Brady talked about the work of the Specialist Modelling Group and how they are involved with the Smart Geometry Group and then discussed several Fosters projects in more detail.

Michael Field [http://nothung.math.uh.edu/~mike] is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Houston, Texas. Originally from London, he has worked in Sydney Australia and, for the last fourteen years, in Houston. His area of mathematics research is symmetric dynamical systems and chaotic dynamics. His artwork, based on ideas from symmetry and chaos, has been widely exhibited; some artwork can be viewed on his website.

Louis Kauffman [ www.math.uic.edu/~kauffman] is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is an internationally-famous researcher and writer on the mathematics and art of knots.

Peter Randall-Page is one of the UK’s leading sculptors with an intuitive understanding of geometry. During the last 25 years his sculpture, drawings and prints have been exhibited widely in the UK and abroad, and he has also undertaken numerous large scale commissions. In 1999 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts at the University of Plymouth and since 2002 has been an Associate Research Fellow at Dartington College of Arts. His work is represented in many public and private collections throughout the world including the Tate Gallery and the British Museum. See www.peterrandall-page.com for more about him and examples of his work. He is a member of the Design Team for the Education Resource Centre at The Eden Project in Cornwall, incorporating a huge granite sculpture within the core of the building. An exhibition of new sculpture opened at Lyveden New Bield, near Peterborough, in June 2006.

Caroline Series [www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/~cms] is a Professor of Mathematics at Warwick University. She is fascinated by the patterns and mathematics behind geometrical structures, and her research area, Non-Euclidean Geometry, is closely related to fractals and chaos. This work has produced fractal images of extraordinary intricacy and delicacy. A beautifully illustrated exposition of some of the ideas, accessible to the 'mathematically-literate layperson', is to be found in her book INDRA'S PEARLS (2002), coauthored with David Mumford and David Wright.

Simon Thomas is a prominent British Sculptor/Geometer with a fascination in the spiritual significance of natural efficiencies. A pioneer of that now termed the “Art/ Science” forum, Simon initiated the Artist residencies at Bristol University's School of Mathematics and Physics; he also co-created the ORDER IN SPACE project at Hewlett Packard’s European Research Headquarters. His talk covered a diverse range of previous works, and also his latest project concerning the structure of soap bubble foam at Portsmouth University.

Afternoons: Parallel sessions

These were grouped by theme, for example music or architecture. Workshop sessions ("Bridges for Teachers - Teachers For Bridges") were also given in the afternoons.

More than 100 papers were accepted for presentation in the parallel sessions: [Click for Abstracts of all papers and workshops].

Visual Art Exhibit

This featured the work of more than 60 artists.

Please see the Art Exhibit website: www.bridgesmathart.org/art-exhibits/bridges06/bridges06.html

There is a short movie about the Art exhibit on the Videos page.

Zome at Bridges

A host of Zometool experts presented various activities throughout the conference. [Read more...]

Evenings

The major Bridges Musical Evening on Monday 7 August was presented as an event open to the public.

Bridges Family Day - Wednesday 9 August

The last day of the conference was a special "popular mathematics" event, also open to the public. This allowed Bridges participants to experience some approaches to mathematical engagement that have been developed in the UK.

For details, see the Family Day page.

Site maintained by Phillip Kent and hosted by the London Knowledge Lab / Last modified: 29 December 2006

The Bridges Conference: Mathematical Connectionsin Art, Music, and Science Institute of Education London Knowledge Lab August 4 – 9, 2006