Mathematical Imagery
From the current
American Mathematical Society
“Mathematical Imagery” page:
“Rosie Lee Tompkins, a renowned African-American quiltmaker whose use of dazzling color and vivid geometric forms made her work internationally acclaimed despite her vehement efforts to remain completely unknown, was found dead on Friday at her home in Richmond, Calif. She was 70.” —Margalit Fox, NY Times 12/6/06
Tompkins was found dead
on December 1, 2006.
on December 1, 2006.
From Log24 on that date:
That entry contained an excerpt from
Tom Wolfe’s The Painted Word—
“What I saw before me was the critic-in-chief of The New York Times saying: In looking at a painting today, ‘to lack a persuasive theory is to lack something crucial.’ I read it again. It didn’t say ‘something helpful’ or ‘enriching’ or even ‘extremely valuable.’ No, the word was crucial….”
Related material:
Diamond Theory
and a politically correct
1995 feminist detective novel
about quilts,
From a summary of the novel:
The story deals with “one Gideon Summerfield, deceased.” Summerfield, a former tutor at (the fictional) St. Agatha’s College, Cambridge University, “is about to become the recipient of the Waymark prize. This prize is awarded in Mathematics and has the same prestige as the Nobel. Summerfield had a rather lackluster career at St. Agatha’s, with the exception of one remarkable result that he obtained. It is for this result that he is being awarded the prize, albeit posthumously.” Someone is apparently trying to prevent a biography of Summerfield from being published.
The following page contains
a critical part of the solution
to the mystery:
a critical part of the solution
to the mystery:
Meanwhile, back in real life…
It is said that the late Ms. Tompkins
liked to work while listening to the
soundtrack of “Saturday Night Fever.”
“It’s just your jive talkin’
you’re telling me lies, yeah
Jive talkin’
you wear a disguise
Jive talkin’
so misunderstood, yeah
Jive talkin’
You really no good”
These lyrics may also serve
to summarize reviews
of Diamond Theory written
in the summer of 2005.
For further details, see
Mathematics and Narrative.