NJ Savvy Living Magazine

This article is reproduced from the Spring 2003 edition of NJ Savvy Living magazine. The text of the article can be read here.

Beauty By The Numbers

What if you could use a computer to turn equations into dazzling, colorful designs? That's the kind of question only a computer scientist -- a particularly creative computer scientist -- would ask.

Enter Bahman Kalantari, an associate professor of computer science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. His answer: "polynomiography"--a computer art form created by turning polynomials, a fundamental algebraic function, into patterns. (Polynomials are defined as "linear combinations of integral powers of a variable," such as x-1.) "We can 'shoot pictures' of polynomials and thencolor them using our own personal artistry," says Kalantari. "Just as with photography and painting, with practice one gets to be better and better at it."

Shown above is Kalantari's "Mathematics of a Heart." The possibilities are limitless, he says. "You can design images that would look wonderful as abstract painting, greeting cards, upholstery or any kind of decorative fabric."

Patents are now pending for software that will make polynomiography available to the public. In the meantime, check it out at www.polynomiography.com.