Art can be made from equations, but equations can be works of art in themselves (Image: Laguna Design/Getty)
MATHEMATICIANS are famous for the lengths they go to when solving problems. To crack Fermat’s Last Theorem, Andrew Wiles worked in isolation for more than six years. And Thomas Hales produced a body of work consisting of 250 pages of notes and 3 gigabytes of computer programs to solve Kepler’s Conjecture, a problem open since 1611 regarding the most efficient way to stack cannonballs.
What is it that motivates mathematicians to go to these extremes? It seems there is something compelling, almost…
