Math Is Everywhere

Posted on Oct 15, 2014 – 09:27am by Raquel

Here at Launch, we are always talking about how math can be found everywhere. Whether it’s in the calculation of a total at Trader Joe’s or the number of stops before we get off the bus, we truly can’t escape it!

I, however, most enjoy exploring math when you find it in the unexpected- when you use its basic principles to make a statement… a work of art.

I recently saw this reflected in Ivan Navarro’s This Land is Your Land sculptural installation that took place at Madison Square Park this past spring. At first glance you just see three water towers—each is about seven feet in diameter and stands on roughly eight-foot-tall supports. However, when you stood below each one, they each displayed a different theme. The interior of one tower displayed the words “me” and “we”. What was great about this display was that it used an internal arrangement of mirrors so that each word “repeats perpetually through a seemingly endless vertical space.” There’s a lot to be said about symmetry and reflections.

My favorite of all three themes was the one displaying the image of a ladder. If you didn’t get a chance to see it yourself, check out some pics below.