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Dr. Bahman Kalantari: My research and the recent book that I have written deals with
solving polynomial equations and their visualization, for which I have coined the term called polynomiography.
Informally and metaphorically speaking, solving a polynomial equation can be considered as
a simple game of hide and seek which a bunch of tiny dots on a painting canvas. We hide
the dots with a polynomial equation then we search for them using your formula or an algorithm.
Polynomiography is the algorithmic visualization of the process of searching for the roots
and painting the canvas along the way. The game is played as a seek part that is if you
are given a polynomial, because it arises in nature, science, in math, and we need to
unravel them and find the roots. I consider polynomiography as a medium that has many
applications in art, math, science, and education. The computer monitor plays the role of the
painting canvas. The algorithms can be selected through human interaction with a software.
We can do our own coloring, selecting new polynomials, selecting the algorithms, pretty
much like working with a camera where you have to select your own settings and you select
your own subject, and the subject in this case is a polynomial, and I'm collaborating
with some teachers in New Jersey, also with artists, with educators. One of the collaborators
that I have is an art/science professor at the prestigious University of Applied Arts
in Vienna, and she in fact has used my demo software at an event at her school, which
was very successful, and a s result of that she is planning to organize an event, a 2-3
month event at the famous and prestigious museum MQ at Vienna. That exhibition is going
to give the opportunity to the public who will be visiting to interact with the demo
software to create their own images, maybe besides other things, exposing to other aspects
of polynomiography such as animation and other things and printing their own images, their
own artwork, and taking it home. I tried that particular approach at the so-called Rutgers
Day last Spring and I can never forget a 9-year old boy who told me he never knew a mathematics
could create such beautiful images, and that's really wonderful, the impression that that
makes on the youth. I have had people approaching me whether they're artists or even kids sending
me e-mail sending me that they like polynomiography and then later they ask, "what are polynomials?"
This is incredible, because of this visualization, they like to learn about polynomials. This
is one of the features of it that I have witnessed with my collaborators when we have held workshops
for students, where we see them discovering on their own mathematical properties, raising
questions that they would never do about abstract objects of polynomials. So, this is one of
the very positive aspects of ppolynomiography (music playing)