January 08, 2006
Unicorn in Captivity 01/18/06
It was (quite literally) half a lifetime ago that i got to visit the Cloisters on a Senior trip to NYC. Seeing the tapestry that i had worked as a jigsaw puzzle with my Auntie Di (which, at the time, was half a lifetime ago) was such an unexpected delight.And now in a few weeks, my love for this piece will be married with my interest in technology. Stumbling across this event quite by accident was another unexpected delight:
When Science Meets Art Program #2 — The Unicorn in Captivity
David & Gregory Chudnovsky, Directors, Institute for Mathematics and Advanced SupercomputingWednesday, January 18, 2006 7:00 p.m. Cahners Theater
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To create an exact visual reproduction of one of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Unicorn Tapestries, digital cameras photographed every inch. When the hundreds of digital photographic files didn't fit smoothly together, the Chudnovsky brothers with their supercomputer were brought in to figure it out. Mathematical geniuses, David & Gregory Chudnovsky are renowned for having built their own supercomputer from mail-order parts. Hosted by Amir D. Aczel, author of Fermat's Last Theorem and Pendulum. |
The Chudnovsky brothers have been featured on Nova ScienceNow (last summer, you can read the transcript).
Also of interest, a fascinating New Yorker Article on the tapestries.
Posted by sciencegrrl at January 8, 2006 09:37 PM
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