Contours 2016-17
Stories from the School of Mathematics. Undergraduate students interview researchers to find out what the life of a mathematician is like.
Stories from the School of Mathematics. Undergraduate students interview researchers to find out what the life of a mathematician is like.
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▼ As an undergraduate, David made a series of stained glass windows to illuminate mathematical concepts he found<br />
inspiring. The common tile motif at top and bottom is a ‘proof by pictures’ of the Pythagorean theorem.<br />
Perhaps you can try and figure out why!<br />
1 The Klein bottle, and its ‘fundamental<br />
group’.<br />
2 A proof that the same number, pi, is the ratio<br />
of a circle's circumference to its diameter,<br />
and of its area to the square of its<br />
radius.<br />
3 Designed by David's brother, Alex Jordan,<br />
this depicts Tartaglia's solution of the cubic<br />
equation.<br />
4 The golden spiral, and its relationship to the<br />
Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio.<br />
<strong>Contours</strong> 21