Crafty Geometry: Science News Online, Dec. 23, 2006

This is terrific! Are we weavers restricted to the Cartesian plane? Crafty Geometry: Science News Online, Dec. 23, 2006: "Crafty Geometry Mathematicians are knitting and crocheting to visualize complex surfaces Erica Klarreich During the 2002 winter holidays, mathematician Hinke Osinga was relaxing with some lace crochet work when her partner and mathematical collaborator Bernd Krauskopf asked, 'Why don't you crochet something useful?' Some crocheters might bridle at the suggestion that lace is useless, but for Osinga, Krauskopf's question sparked an exciting idea. 'I looked at him, and we thought the same thing at the same moment,' Osinga recalls. 'We realized that you could crochet the Lorenz manifold.' [see the origianl location for pictures] For years, Osinga and Krauskopf, both of the University of Bristol in England, had been studying the Lorenz manifold, a complicated surface that emerges from a model of chaotic weather systems. The pair had created an algorithm to generate 2-dimensional computer visualizations of the surface, but Osinga found the flat images unsatisfying. When Krauskopf asked his question, she suddenly realized that the computer algorithm could be interpreted as crochet instructions. 'I had to try it,' she says. Eighty-five hours and 25,511 crochet stitches later, Osinga had a Lorenz manifold almost a meter tall and about 25 centimeters in diameter, which now hangs in the pair's house as a decoration." [there's lots more - go to http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20061223/bob10.asp]

Complex Weavers Sharing Information - Encouraging Interests

Complex Weavers: 'Sedona Shawl' by Bonnie Inouye This month we showcase Bonnie Inouye's 'Sedona Shawl' Bonnie writes: "The colors in this shawl were inspired by a visit to the Sedona, Arizona home of another CW member, Linda Sunstad, followed by a 16-day raft trip down the Grand Canyon in 2005. I watched the colors on red rocks shift in changing light and wondered if I could create fabric with similar shifting colors. The shapes in the draft also came from these weather and water-shaped rocks."