High concept /sophisticated mathy art, and your other mathy gift ideas please

[TacomaLuv]

Hi :)

I was referred here from the xkcd math forums...

Basically, I'm looking for a gift for my mathematician boyfriend. He's a voracious reader and has pretty much devoured every single math book in print, so a book is out. I was thinking of some math-based art would be cool, however I'm not sure where to start, or if that even exists.

When I google "math art" or something of that ilk I get things more along the lines of something your 7th grade math teacher thought was neat, but not really something you'd like to put on display in your apartment.

He's 28, into all types of math & physics. Space and robots and lots of general geekery.

Any suggestions? I really like him and would love to blow him away with a great present :) I really appreciate any thoughts!

Thank you in advance!
TLuv

 

[dodo]

My two cents:

• An Escher poster, though it might be a little commonplace. Unless http://www.andrewlipson.com/escher/relativity.html" (!).
• Some "retro" device, like a http://www.sliderule.ca/" .
• Two plane tickets to a math-themed place, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Bridges_of_K%C3%B6nigsberg" .

 

[ircdan]

He will love one of these:)

http://www.cafepress.com/buy/math/-/cfpt2_/copt_/cfpt_/source_searchBox/x_0/y_0


So many cool tshirts!

 

[TacomaLuv]

[*]Two plane tickets to a math-themed place, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Bridges_of_K%C3%B6nigsberg" .
[/LIST]

Dodo, that is brilliant! He actually has already been to the 7 bridges, any other ideas along those lines? :)

 

[dodo]

Well, I'm running out of steam, but a possibility is to plan a tour through several nearby cities that contain a labyrinth, and then try to visit the labyrinth in each of them. http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/smc/labyrinth/gallery/gset.html" there is a partial list, though I'm sure more can be googled (for example, San Francisco has a church with a labyrinth-shaped floor).

Perhaps something similar could be done with other motifs, such as http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_square#Albrecht_D.C3.BCrer.27s_magic_square" (I believe Durer's "Melancholia" is in N.Y.'s Metropolitan, for example).

Barcelona is a city than hold both a latin square (at the Sagrada Familia church; though the other side of the church is much better) and a small labyrinth park; plus the work of architect Gaudi can be pretty appealing to a mathematician's eye. Although it is a beautiful city, it doesn't strike me as a "math" place, however.

Places in Germany related to J.S.Bach could be yet another option. But I'm thinning out.

 

[Office_Shredder]

Maybe some sort of fractal art

 

[TacomaLuv]

something like this?
http://www.bathsheba.com/math/120cell/

I would LOVE to get him a copy of this game rithmomachia,
http://www.gamecabinet.com/rules/Rithmomachia.html
although I haven't been able to find anywhere that sells the board or game pieces. guess I could go CRAZY and commission an artist to make the game for me :) just a thought...

 

[Office_Shredder]

Something like
This or this is what I had in mind. Google image fractal art to see some more examples

 

[Math Jeans]

Front: http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/science/6dff/"

Back: http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/science/6dff/back/"

 

[Gib Z]

This isn't exactly art, but he will have great laughs with some maths and physics based jokes =] You will get heaps and heaps of physics based ones if you search "Science Joke thread" on the forums, we can even choose the best ones out for you. As for the mathematical ones, which I prefer, being a mathematical person myself, I will have to look around, I can't quite remember the sites I used to visit for them.