Speaker: Kirsi Peltonen, Aalto University
Abstract: We will discuss about our decade long journey to develop communication between mathematics, arts, design and architecture at Aalto University, Finland. As a concrete opening in education, we have launched a Math&Arts Minor that is open to all university students. This has unfolded new viewpoints relevant to mathematics and other academic disciplines as well. Several fields of mathematics suggest novel and imaginative ways of thinking about space, shapes and transformations that have not yet been fully linked into meaningful concepts in other areas. Many surprising and provocative notions and phenomena have come especially under the categories of low-dimensional topology and geometry. During the talk, we will describe also some related ongoing interdisciplinary research activities and industrial collaboration.
About the speaker:
Kirsi Peltonen is a geometer and Senior
University Lecturer at Aalto University,
Finland. She is the author of the book
Shapes in Action about interdisciplinary views on math, art, design and architecture and has received the Finnish Mathematical Societies’ Mathematics Prize for her projects that increase communication between arts and mathematics.