Helaman Ferguson
Helaman Ferguson | |
---|---|
Born | 1940 Salt Lake City, Utah, US |
Nationality | American |
Helaman Rolfe Pratt Ferguson (born 1940 in
Early life and education
Ferguson's mother died when he was about three and his father went off to serve in the
Ferguson is a graduate of
Work
In 1977, Ferguson and another mathematician,
In January 2014, Ferguson and his wife Claire Ferguson delivered an MAA Invited Address, titled "Mathematics in Stone and Bronze," at the Joint Math Meetings in Baltimore Maryland. He is an active artist, often representing mathematical shapes in his works. One of the first bronze torii sculpted by Ferguson was exhibited at a computer art exhibition in 1989 at the Computer Museum in Boston. His most widely known piece of art is a 69 cm (27") bronze sculpture, Umbilic Torus. In 2010, the Simons Foundation, a private institution committed to the advancement of science and mathematics, commissioned him to create the Umbilic Torus SC, a massive 8.5 m (28½') high sculpture in cast bronze and granite weighing more than nine tons. With its installation completed in 2012, the torus sculpture was donated to Stony Brook University in Long Island, N.Y., and sits outside the Math and Physics buildings of the same university, near the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics. Mounted on a stainless steel column, the torus sits on a 7.7 m (25¼') diameter granite base, where various mathematical formulas defining the torus are inscribed.[6] To create the huge sculpture, Ferguson wrote a program consisting of 25,000 movements to control a 4.9 m (16') x 6.1 m (20') robot arm and its affixed 30 cm (12") long industrial diamond-encrusted cutting tool.[7]
Juggling
In 1987 Ferguson ran 50 miles in 16 hours while joggling.[8] Around that time he used to make and sell juggling balls by mail.
See also
References
- ^ "helaman ferguson sculpture: the artist". Archived from the original on 2007-03-27. Retrieved 2008-03-11.
- ^ "Ferguson-Forcade Algorithm".
- ^ The Best of the 20th Century: Editors Name Top 10 Algorithms Archived 2018-03-28 at the Wayback Machine by Barry Arthur Cipra; SIAM News, Volume 33, Number 4
- ^ PSLQ Algorithm
- ^ "An Algorithm for the Ages: PSLQ, A Better Way to Find Integer Relations". Archived from the original on 2006-10-05. Retrieved 2006-10-25.
- ^ Helaman Ferguson, "Two Theorems, Two Sculptures, Two Posters", American Mathematical Monthly, Volume 97, Number 7, August–September 1990, pages 589-610.
- ^ "Helaman Ferguson's sculpture blends the artistic, mathematic". 11 December 2012.
- ^ "Joggling World Records (Joggling = Jogging plus Juggling)".
External links
- Home page
- Celebrating Mathematics in Stone and Bronze by Helaman and Claire Ferguson, Notices of the AMS 57:7, July 2010.