This is a piece for Delaware Today about young girls losing interest in science, technology, engineering and math related studies. The state’s schools and businesses are hoping to turn all this around.

via AirElephant

“Nevertheless, the fact is that there is nothing as dreamy and poetic, nothing as radical, subversive, and psychedelic, as mathematics. It is every bit as mind blowing as cosmology or physics… and allows more freedom of expression than poetry, art, or music… Mathematics is the purest of the arts, as well as the most misunderstood.” – Paul Lockhart

Find out how fractal geometry is used to measure and analyze coast lines, rivers, weather and other natural phenomena, how fractals are helping doctors detect heart issues and cancer earlier, and make just about everything better from movies and games to textiles, art and communications.

“For generations, scientists believed that the wildness of nature could not be defined by mathematics but fractal geometry is leading to a whole new understanding, revealing an underlying order governed by simple mathematical rules.”

- PBS/NOVA

I think I am in love.

via sciencecenter

The sculpture is a modular combination of nine interacting pieces. Each piece is folded by hand from a circle of paper, using a compass to score the creases and cut out a central hole. This transformation of flat paper into swirling surfaces creates sculpture that feels alive. Paper folds itself into a natural equilibrium form depending on its creases. These equilibria are poorly understood, especially for curved creases. We are exploring what shapes are possible in this genre of self-folding origami, with applications to deployable structures, manufacturing and self-assembly.