Princess Rashid- Art with science

I found Princess Simpson Rashid while I was googling in Internet about the Periodic Table of chemical elements, her paintings just popped up when I asked google to see "images".  My first thought was "wooo this is soberb, I have to post this". I found it so amazing that, for the first time in "Mentes Irrequietas/ Restless Minds Boosters" blog history, I felt I should write the artist before I post it, and so I did it, Princess Simpson Rashid answered me next day giving Restless Minds permission to post her work, thats why for the first time- of many more, I hope- the image has the "used with permission" statement.

Princess Simpson Rashid is a passionate with science. She is a Bachelor in Physics- Georgia State University-, and she studied printmaking and painting at the Escuela de Artes Plastica in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Science-Inspired Abstraction, Modern Sport-Fencing, and Expresssionistic Landscapes are the main themes she turns to in her work. Today we are going to see only a small part of her work, the Science-Inspired Abstraction.
If you like the images you are going to see next, I strongly advise you to check Rashid website, her work is "super restless" and full of color and good energy.
At this moment Rashid lives in Tampa, Florida, USA, and in her own words:

"My current body of work explores the relationship between abstract art and math, color and music, composition and perception. I use line and color to convey movement. My painting technique often involves dripping and pouring paint until I’m satisfied with the composition. My artistic goal is to capture the individual energy and essence of the subject matter by whatever means available to me. Color, texture, design and energy are the components that make up all of my work.." in http://www.foglefineart.com/artists/profile/rashid-princess/

In this paintings Princess Simpson Rashid is a true art scientist, or "sciencartist" if you want, she uses the elements of Periodic Table, the x's and y's from math and even Pi constant from geometry (the famous 3,14). Super Restless uh?

©Princess Simpson Rashid, "Periodic Table-2",  Acrylic on Canvas, 36 x 60 inches. www.princessrashid.com,  Used with permission.

©Princess Simpson Rashid, "Periodic Circles 2",  Acrylic on Canvas, 36 x 36 inches. www.princessrashid.com,  Used with permission.

©Princess Simpson Rashid, "Composition B",  Acrylic on Canvas,48 x 24 inches. www.princessrashid.com,  Used with permission.

©Princess Simpson Rashid, "Composition A",  Acrylic on Canvas,48 x 24 inches. www.princessrashid.com,  Used with permission.

©Princess Simpson Rashid, "Periodic Circles 1",  Acrylic on Canvas, 36 x 36 inches. www.princessrashid.com,  Used with permission.

©Princess Simpson Rashid, "Pi-1",  Acrylic on Panel, 24 x 24 inches. www.princessrashid.com,  Used with permission.

For more informations please consult Rashid website, and her blog.

Sources: 
http://www.foglefineart.com 
http://princessrashid.com

Et voilá!
Science and art holding hands!

Enjoy!

Origami tsuru DIY

The art of folding paper is called Origami.
Origami (etymological meaning: fold(ori) and paper(Kami)), is the art of folding paper without using instruments like scissors or glue. It´s possible to fold paper to form figures, some more complex then others, some using a single sheet some using more.

Origami was born in Japan, in middle age. This art was very formal, and was related with religious ceremonies.

The true is everyone knows how to do origami, the simple paper hat or the famous paper boat, are simple origami folding. Origami is a wonderful art that captivates everyone from 8 to 80.
 
In Japan every folded paper figure has a different and symbolic meaning. As an example:

• Frog: symbolizes love and fertility;  
• Turtle: symbolizes longevity; 
• Tsuru (the bird that often symbolizes origami art), also known as grou or stork, symbolizes good luck, happiness and health.

About tsuru
Tsurus are big and beautiful birds, they are full of color and it's a sacred bird in Japan.

An hermit is a person who lives alone without any luxury. The story says that nn Japan some of this hermits lived in mountains with this birds as companions. It's said this hermits had extra human powers- they here capable to stop aging. For this reason the Tsuru is known as the "longevity bird".

Some believe that if you fold 1000 tsurus and at the same time wish something that wish will become true, other believe if you are ill you will get better as fast as the number of tsurus you fold.

Use the schema to fold your first tsuru, it's not hard just requires some skill.

Or try the movie:

Origami is recognized as an educational resource for over 100 years. The first square 15cm papers begun to appear in the third decade of the century XX (paper used nowadays to make origami).

Today, origami has been shown to be an important aid in teaching basic geometry and develop motor skills and individual creativity.

Resources: Núcleo de tecnologia educacional de Jaraguá do Sul; Mundo Nipo; Baú do Professor

Et voilá!

Keep going, 999 to go!

Enjoy!

Origamic Architecture

My restless Mind stop in this paper crafts, I just love them, ad makes me think about those chidre books with pop up images. I hope you like them.
You can check more origami iformation here. Some of the designs are simpler then others but they are all wonderful:

Gal in Black

Artist: Ingrid Siliakus

Artist: Willem

Ingrid Siliakus, Amsterdam

Gal in Black

Artist: Willem

Sources:
thepompomist.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/origamic-architecture/
frogsmoke.com/2008/02/25/origamic-architecture/
toxel.com/inspiration/2008/12/01/beautiful-and-creative-paper-art-creations/

Et voilá!
Amazing uh?

Enjoy!

Instant facts- Just add water 17

The number of possible ways of playing just the first four moves on each side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.
in Azimov, Isaac, 1991, "Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts"

Start the year with brain gym

Let's start 2012 with a brain teaser:
Don't use paper or a pencil, just your brain, be fast as keep adding the numbers, keep the calculator away from you

• Take the 1000 number,
• Add 40,
• Add another 1000,
• Add 30,
• Add again 1000,
• Add 20,
• Add 1000,
• And add 10.

Whats the total?


5000?


You should try again, the number is 4100!!!




What hapened?
Your brain is confused by the sequence of decimal numbers, and automatically jumps to the  higher decimal (que acontece e que a sequência decimal confunde o nosso cérebro, que salta naturalmente para a mais alta decimal (hundreds rather than tens).

Et voilá!
Another brain mistery!


Enjoy!

Tangram- some cool videos about this math puzzle

Today, on invited restless mind, we have some videos for you about Tangram:

And to finish, my favourite:

Et voilá!
7 dancing "tans" to make nice images, can you do it?

Enjoy!

Instant facts- Just add water 2

Pi, Greek letter (π), is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi Day is celebrated by math enthusiasts around the world on March 14th. Pi = 3.1415926535…
in http://www.piday.org/

Control digits- Portuguese Identification Card case- ISBN numbers

Each Portuguese identification card has a digit to the right of the ID number.
Countless stories have been created around this digit, most of them myths.

Although this article is in "answers to readers" section, there isn't any particular reader asking about this using the normal channels, but it's a question often brought to the conversion.

So, what is this digit?
Jorge Buescu, degree in physics from the FCL, PhD in mathematics from the University of Warwick and Professor of Mathematics at IST (1), explain this in his book "O mistério do bilhete de identidade e outras histórias"- "The mystery of the identity and other stories".

It's important to clarify
This digit isn't the total number of people with exactly same name as you. This is a urban legend, if you don’t believe me just take a moment to think about this:
This is always a 1 digit number, i.e., the range is from 0 to 9, so, if I have 9 people exactly same name as me it's nuts to think there must be someone with 12 or 14 people with exactly same name? The control number for those people should be higher then 9.

So what is this mysterious digit?
On same book Jorge Buescu, explains that "The extra digit is (or would be, if the Portuguese authorities hadn't committed a pathetic mathematical error!) Only a control number that detects if the number of the card is correctly written", and continues to explain that the human brain can't handle with hundreds of number with many digits if they don’t have a link between them, or a pattern. That’s why this method is used, so the computer can detect errors in the numbers. What would happen if a supermarket operator makes a mistake with the barcode numbers and "... charge 200 bucks for a butter package..." it would be unthinkable.

This number, if there wasn't an error, like noted by Buescu, would be used to detect if the Identification Card Number entered in database contained errors or not. 
This system of "digits detectors" is used in several other daily things such as credit cards, the ISSN for periodicals, the ISBN for the books, there are many other cases like those, where we use a control digit.

So how it works?
Buescu uses book ISBN as an example.
This number is usually in the back of the books and each title have a unique 10 digit number. For instance the ISBN for Buescu book "O mistério do bilhete de identidade e outras histórias", Edições Gradiva from collection "Ciência Aberta", is 972-662-792-3.
To check if the sequence is correct the computer applies the following formula:

x1+2x2+3x3+ … +10x10

Where ISBN number is:

x1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8x9x10

The result, explains the author, is divisible by 11.

Try yourself:

ISBN:  972-662-792-3
(1x9+2x7+3x2+4x6+5x6+6x2+7x7+8x9+9x2+10x3)/11=
(9+14+6+24+30+12+49+72+18+30)/11=
264/11=
24

Some of you, restless minds always on alert, would say: Some of the ISBN numbers have X's! Yes you are correct, some control numbers are not digit but letters, in those cases the 10 is represented by an X, that's due to the nature of used algorithm (2).

If you have a Portuguese identification card, you can try it yourself, do the same as the ISBN numbers, but read the number from right o left, like the image.

The pathetic mathematical error is that the number 10 (or the X in ISBN numbers) was replaced by a 0, so half of the people with control digit 0 should have a X.

Sources:
(1) Buescu, Jorge. "O mistério do bilhete de identidade e outras histórias", Lisboa, Gradiva- Pulicações Lda, 2nd ed 2001
(2) motivate.maths.org/content/Calculator-fun/follow-project-suggestions

Et voilá!
Don't believe everything you ear

Enjoy!

Tangram legend- Yu and God of Thunder

We can find a lot of legends about Tangram, its impossible to know witch one is true. we found 4 different versions about the origin of this millenary game. The first three are the most common, but the fourth one is the most surprising and interesting. 

The messenger and the Emperor
"Once upon a time 4000 ago, a messenger came to the Emperor Tan with a square mirror, when he dropped to the ground. But he dropped the mirror on the ground and it shattered into seven pieces.
The messenger tried to join the seven pieces in order to reassemble the square. While trying to solve the problem, the messenger has created hundreds of types of people, animals, plants, until finally he made it. "
from here

The disciple and the master
"Once upon a time a young chinese was saying goobye to his master.He was about to take a great trip around the world.
On this occasion, the master handed him a square mirror and said:
-With this mirror, record everything you see on your trip to show me when you get back.
The disciple, surprised, asked:
-But master, how can I show you, with this simple mirror, all I see during the trip?
At this moment the mirror fell from his hands and broke into seven pieces.
Then the Master said:
- Now, with these seven pieces, you can build figures to illustrate your trip. "from here

Mr. Tan and the tile

"Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a Chinese gentleman named Tan. Mr. Tan lived in a golden palace, with a lake. He loved walk around the lake for hours ... One day while wandered among the reeds, he saw a bright object on the ground. He bent down and found a magnificent silver tile. He took it and admired it, the tile was smooth as the surface of the lake, soft as a feather, bright as his outfit.
Unfortunately, the beautiful tile escaped from his hands and broke into seven pieces on the floor! Mr. Tan, disappointed, tried to reconstitute it. Putting the pieces together, created a form, a little character!, shifted a few more pieces, and to his astonishment, formed a beautiful house!
Mr. Tan returned to the palace so excited to have invented a new game.
He called it TANGRAM and offered one to everyone in his kingdom!"

from here

All this stories share several things: the object geometry, a square tile or a square mirror; the object falls; the object split in seven pieces (Tans); someone try to reconstruct the square and various forms are formed.
As we said earlier, we found a quite a different story, so that caught my attention, the Legend of Yu and the God of Thunder.

Yu and God of Thunder

 "Thousands and thousands of years ago, Yu , the Great Dragon, lived among humans, who venerated him because he was 'yang', good, and was always ready to help them.

One day, the God of Thunder, jealous of the offerings the men had brought to Yu, in a burst of anger, crushed the sky with his hatchet. So, the sky fell on Earth in seven pieces black like coal. Light disappeared taking with it all existing things.

At first Yu felt sad for the world, and then felt nostalgic. So he decided to collect the seven black pieces of the sky and, in memory of the former world, began to reassemble several kinds of shapes: animals, plants and human beings that had disappeared. But after finishing each shape, its shadow left it and wandered the deserted world crying about its misfortune.

These complaints reached the ears of the God of Thunder who was touched and, to remedy the harm he had caused, he pulled from each shadow the body of a living being to repopulate the Earth.

From that time on, our shadow faithfully follows every move we make and with the seven pieces of the sky, called Qi Qiao Ban (literally 'seven boards of cunning'), everything on Earth can still be shaped".

from here

You can read more about Tangram here.

Sources:
http://www.archimedes-lab.org/tangramagicus/Tangram_legend.html
http://peixinhosnosotao.blogspot.com/2009/02/tangram-lenda.html
http://pt.scribd.com/doc/42133445/A-Lenda-Do-Tangram-1
http://www.eb1-setubal-n17-amoreiras.rcts.pt/projectos/fotostangram/a_lenda_do_tangram.htm

Et Voilá!
We found this story so wonderful and so restless that we couldn’t help sharing it
Enjoy!

Origami Constructions- Straight lines that seem to fold as a sheet of paper

Today we bring to you the result of a little research work on internet.
This were some of the images we found under the theme Origami Buildind.

1. Architecture Museum - Origami design Architects Rojkind

2. Origami design home Architects Yasuhiro Yamashita, Tokio

3. Residencial home,  Architects Andreas Trisveis, Larnaca - Cyprus

4. Homes and temporary housing, Aquitecto Ming Tang, China

References: imahnahome.com; jebole.com; arnewde.com

Et Voilá!
not madeof paper, but almost
Divirtam-se! 

Polyhedra with flexible straw

Some games are incredible amazing, they are so simple and obvious that they take us back to school playground.

Today we will play with simple materials, but we will do amazing stuff. Our little restless minds will be amazed with the fantastic effect, and they will not know how to spot doing it.

First of all,
Polyhedra are geometric solids limited by polygons, in other words, all polyhedra faces are plain, and these faces can have any number of edges (the triangle has three edges, the square has 4 ...).
In this activity we will build geometric solids with straws and tape, you will see they are stronge and stable.

We will need:

• flexible straws,
• tape.

How to:

1. Take 2 straws; 
2. Flexible straws have one short end and one long side, with your fingers press the short end, smash it, you must be able to squeeze it;
3. Take the squeezed end and snap it inside the longest end of the second straw;
4. Repeat the procedure with a third straw; 
5. Bend all three flexible ends at 60º, join the large and small ends of the first and third straw, and this will make a triangle;
6. Make 4 triangles;
7. Tape the triangles, side to side;
8. The last triangle is the base, now you have a pyramid, tape several different triangles in different positions and you will build other solids.
9. If instead of using three straws you use 4 you will make a square, with 6 squares you can make a cube;
10. If you use 5, it will become a  pentagon, a hexagon can be made with 6 .... and so on, the more you use the larger will be the structure;
11. You may want to do smaller solids...cut the straws ... if you do this cut them all the same size.

Et voilá!
Fun math with colorful straws


Enjoy!

Tangram- Craft

What is Tangram?
The Tangram, is one of the most popular puzzles in the world. This enigma is formed by 7 polygons and the goal is to organize all the pieces to form geometric figures.

This mathematic puzzle was, more then 100 years ago, so famous as the Rubik Cube, and it was played for many as entertainment, educational tool or mathematic tool. Tangram makes easier to recognize the geometrical forms by young children, and helps on mathematical problems resolution.
The seven polygons that form Tangram are called "tans" and they are organized like the picture

Tangram goal
The goal of this game is to place all the 7 polygons in the right position to form a given design. Sometimes there is more then one solution, alternatives solutions are acceptable as long as they have exactly the same design that is asked.

Basic rules:

• You must use all the 7 pieces;
• All the pieces must be plain;
• The pieces must touch each other;
• The pieces can't be overlapped;
• Pieces can be rotated and/or turned up side down to form the design.

The first challenge we face when we want to play this millenary game is the Tangram itself. Drawing it from scratch is a good option. you can make it the right size for you and chose the colors you like the most, that’s the first step "to make the game yours", and that’s very important in the learning process.

Today we are going to show you how to do this.

We will need:

1. 1 sheet of cardstock, EVA, cardboard or other material,
2. ruler,
3. square,
4. pencil,
5. eraser,
6. scissors.

This step by step is very simple, just try to be exact on the measures.

1- Use the scissors to cut a square shape:

2- Draw a straight line between B and H, dividing the square into two equal triangles: 

3- Find the exact middle of the line HB, name that point D: 

4- Now draw another line from vertice A to point D, at this time you must have three triangles.

5- Find the exactly middle between B and J, that will be the E point. Now do the same to the H and J, that will be the I point.

6- Now draw a line from E to I.

7- Draw a line that makes a 90º angle between point D and line IE , in other words elongate the line AD.

8- With the help of the ruler and the square draw 1 parallel line to DG and another parallel line to the line AH.

To personalize your Tangram puzzle, and create something really unic, paint it in your favorite color, or use a pattern, after painting cut all the polygons to have the 7 geometrical figures.

Images bellow were found on Internet, and are only a few of many possible images we can form using Tangram pieces.

Although the original form of Tangram is a square, there are other Tangram forms, like the egg and the round shape:

References: http://www.archimedes-lab.org/tangramagicus/pagetang1.html#; http://bloguinhovania.blogspot.com/2010/05/como-fazer-o-tangram-com-dobradura.html

Et voilá!

Fun with geometric forms

Enjoy!