Dalibraic topology

Publication Date

1-1-2021

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Journal of Mathematics and the Arts

Volume

15

Issue

2

DOI

10.1080/17513472.2021.1940468

First Page

137

Last Page

149

Abstract

One of my homework problems as a graduate student included the task of finding all the path-connected covers of a certain topological space X. During a lecture by Thomas Banchoff, my friend and I discovered that the universal cover of our space X was front and centre in a painting by Salvador Dalí! The painting, ‘Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)’, features a 4D object unfolded in 3D. This inspired me to create my own mathematical artwork. Using ideas from catastrophe theory, I turned Dalí's last painting into a truly 4D object which provides a new and beautiful interpretation of that artwork. The new interpretation reveals hidden rotational/reflectional symmetries and highlights the implied 3- and 4-dimensional worlds that the painted curves naturally live in.

Keywords

4D, catastrophe theory, Dalí, hypercube, swallow's tail

Department

Mathematics and Statistics

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