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Islamic Art

Most everyone is familiar with geometry and patterns.  The above image by Richard Henry is included here to give some mathematical frame of reference.  The artistic emphasis of these ideas gained prominence due to certain religious rules in Islamic religious texts forbidding the portrayal of human forms in worship.  Additionally, the advanced mathematical discoveries in the middle east brought about some wonder toward the patterns of these ideas.  The underlying message in such geometries, within the Islamic context, is the infinite and natural power of God.  It is important to note that ideas like zero, our decimal counting system, and algebra originated from India and the middle east.  Arabic calligraphy is also similarly celebrated and made the subject of  many past and current Islamic art.  

Pickering’s Triangle

Delicate Nature and Animal Embroidery by Emillie Ferris 

UK artist Emillie Ferris composes stunning embroidery illustrations of wildlife and nature into pendants and oval frames. Depicting delicate animals, such as butterflies, deers and rabbits, Ferris’ choice of wildlife subjects exist in the realms of an ethereal forest.

Her embroidery technique displays meticulous talent and detail to color, shape, as well as the texture of fur, which stands out against a clean off-white background. You can find more of her dainty designs at her Etsy shop!

An Adaptable Species: Part 2 of 4 (Part 1) Episode 11: The Immortals, Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey

More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Mechanical Engineering: Strain Energy for Some Common Situations

Last time, we talked about strain energy - the energy that is stored when an object undergoes deformation due to applied stress. We worked out a general expression for strain energy density (the amount of strain energy stored per unit volume):

Note that this is easily convertible to overall strain energy - we would just have to integrate strain energy density over the volume of the object to get total strain energy.

The dV here is just the product of dx, dy, and dz (like regular volume is the product of x, y, and z). Or, you could say it’s the product of the cross-sectional area (dA) and dx.

Bearing this in mind, we can easily get some simple expressions for strain energy in some familiar situations.

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