Science, needlework mesh in space

It was bound to happen, one of those mysterious and unlikely juxtapositions that causes one to exclaim, “Why hasn’t anyone thought of that before!” Actually, it’s been happening for as long as women have been crocheting ruffled doilies, but only recently has it been recognized for what it really is – and by a woman who does math, at that. I’m talking about the convergence of science and needlework. We’re talking hyberbolic space, here.

Well, actually, I’m not, but Abigail Leonard, author of a recent Newsday article, is. She conducted an interview with Cornell University mathematicians Daina Taimina and her husband, David Henderson, who spent years trying to figure out how to illustrate what hyperbolic space is.

Hyberbolic space, according to information I found on The Institute for Figuring Web site, www.theiff.org, is “the geometric opposite of a sphere.” In other words, it looks – judging by the photo of Taimina’s crocheted model of hyperbolic space – like a head of hydroponically grown Boston lettuce.

Or like one of those insanely ruffled, and highly starched, doilies my grandmother liked to crochet in the 1950s. And all the time we thought she was making something pretty to place on the dull gray plane of the Formica table top to relieve its pared down, up-to-the-minute, post-WWII chrome modernity. Who knew?

According to the Web site: “For Isaac Newton and his followers, physical space was … endless, formless and flat. But in 1919 measurements of starlight bending around the sun showed that space is intrinsically curved. In one recent model proposed by physicists, the universe is shaped like a soccer ball.”

Once Taimina got it into her head what hyperbolic shape looked like, the rest was easy. She grabbed her crochet hook, some chunky yarn and started working in the round, making double crochets, increasing many stitches in each round to achieve the desired, not too droopy lettuce-leaf shape.

The Smithsonian grabbed one of Taimina’s models for a scientific display, and teachers and professors are clamoring for models faster than Taimina can make them.

My guess is that if the directions for the hyperbolic space model were posted on the Web, crocheters would jump on the bandwagon and produce models for every school, college and university science department in the United States. Maybe even the world. Crocheters can be like that. Or we could exhume our grandmothers’ ruffled doilies …

Snippets

. Hancock County Quilters will hold a business meeting, followed by a weighted thread catcher project, at 10 a.m. Wednesday, April 6, at the Fellowship Hall, Community of Christ Church, Ellsworth. Call 667-8795 for more information.

. Quilt lovers headed to Boston this summer may want to put a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts on the itinerary. The exhibit, “The Quilts of Gee’s Bend,” will be on display from June 1 to Aug. 21. The quilts, dating from the 1930s to 2000, are made by several generations of African-American women, descendents of slaves, who used the fabrics of their lives – corduroy, denim, cotton sheets and worn clothing – and fashioned bed coverings that resemble abstract paintings. Visit www.mfa.org to obtain more information, or call (617) 267-9300.

. The Internet is a truly awesome – maybe even hyperbolic – space. I receive e-mail from women in Italy, Great Britain, Canada and many parts of the United States who read By Hand online.

. Www.purseparadise.com is a good source for bone, metal, horn and enamel tatting shuttles.

. Knitters interested in yarn from the Andes by way of Vancouver, Wash., may find www.knitpicks.com of interest.

Ardeana Hamlin can be reached at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.