Good morning!

You know what I’ve not convered recently, it’s maths, and specifically in the case of today, geometry.

We start with a real mathematician, Margherita Beloch. She was the first [NB person not woman] to formalise an origami move which allows, when possible, to construct by paper folding the common tangents to two parabolas. As a consequence she showed how to extract cubic roots by paper folding something that is impossible to do by rule and compass. I love this because it's a physical way of answering an abstract question:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margherita_Piazzola_Beloch

Here’s a video explaining the technique, for those of you who like that sort of thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3lWMYr00PQ

I’m not above featuring cakes on Fem Fri, and today is such a day – enjoy the beautiful mathematical cakes of architect Dinara Kasko. I really like the low res cake (third down in the main article) although as it also looks like it’s made of packing foam it’s not the one I’m choosing to feature here:

Employing algorithmic tools and complex diagramming techniques, Kasko is able to design and fabricate cakes aesthetically reminiscent of 3D graphs, geometric models, and avant-garde sculptures. In order to perfect her craft and produce a diverse collection of cakes, Kasko teams up with an eclectic range of professionals, including mathematicians, scientists, and sculptors.

https://mymodernmet.com/math-cake-dinara-kasko/

Finally, please tolerate me in my yearly tradition of posting something that I wrote; it’s my review of books from 2017 and I was pleased with this visualisation:What I forgot was how many good — enjoyable, interesting, funny — books you read when you read a lot, and how many connections you find between those enjoyable and interesting and funny works. In the most part without being defined “projects”, my reading started to cluster around themes with (as seen below) Lauren Elkin’s Flâneuse, Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and Catherine Merridale’s Lenin On The Train acting as central points

https://medium.com/@Vincennes/vincennes-review-of-books-2017-3e17c633d217

Happy Friday, enjoy the first weekend of the new year!

Alex.