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Stanford student attempts to capture 4D photography

A Stanford student has tried to capture 4D by being able to take a picture that allows a person to focus in at different depths.  Of course, this is really just 3D, but the student has created (or perhaps re-created) an interesting 3D effect.  As Digg user bivouac points out, "Wouldn't four dimensional photography be video?"  I agree that's one representation of 4D. 

As I've said before in An Introduction to the fascinating patterns of Visual Math, I just don't think it's possible to show 4D in a still 3D setting.  Artists have tried to capture 4D by forcing people to use their imagination.  But the results are inevitably inaccurate.

My favorite representation of n-dimensional space would be the hypercube.

Playboy centerfolds mathematically averaged

The attached picture (click to enlarge) is a piece of art done by Jason Salavon where he  mathematically averaged every Playboy centerfold from 1988-1997.  Kind of interesting.  What would be very interesting would be a longer term piece that would show things like 6-month moving averages - this way we could see small changes over time.  But very cool nonetheless.

(Edit: I just discovered Mr. Salavon did break out averages by decade for the 1960's, 1970's, 1980's and 1990's.  You can find some interesting trends - such as the midsections for the 1980's and 1990's are much lighter.  He also has some other interesting works such as Class Of and a very cool Late Night Comedian Triad Video).

Reminds me of a Time Magazine cover story a few years back where they "averaged out" a number of faces to show the typical beautiful face.

"An Introduction to the fascinating patterns of Visual Math"

Last week we reviewed a 4-D sculpture at Penn State.  While we weren't keen on that piece (it wasn't mathematically accurate), we are keen on "An Introduction to the fascinating patterns of Visual Math" which is posted on a cool art site called Miqel.com. The art in the Visual Math exhibit covers fractals, vectoral geometry, minimal surfaces, and the Golden Ratio.  Rock on Miqel.com!

(Hat tip to digg)

Art in 4-D are Penn State

A sculpture at Penn State attempts to be 4-dimensional.  As a website devoted to creative and artistic visions of quantitative matters, we appreciate the attempt.  But to be fair to the 4th dimension, the sculpture fails to show all points in the hypercube of distance 1.