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Making the connection
An interview with Nick Mee, Director, Virtual Image
By Kim Thomas |
"The problem with maths and science teaching," says Nick Mee, "is not that people are intrinsically not interested in maths and science, but that it has traditionally been presented in a fairly dull way."
Nick, director of the educational technology company Virtual Image, believes it doesn't have to be like that. Connections in Space, a new project targeted at older teenagers, is an attempt to show just how exciting maths can be. The CD, which can be used either as a library resource or in conjunction with an interactive whiteboard, was created by a multidisciplinary team, consisting of Nick (a physicist and software designer), John Barrow (an astrophysicist and mathematician), Martin Kemp (an historian of art and science) and Richard Bright (an artist).
The idea behind Connections in Space, which has been designed as both a CD-Rom and a website, is to examine the connections between artistic and scientific representations of space. By clicking on a particular topic, such as 'Cosmic Structure' or 'Hypercubes', the reader can read text relating to the topic and see visual representations, some of which are animated.
The clever bit, though, is that the visual interface is based on the London Underground map, so that the topics are presented as stations along a particular line. Along the red line, for example, which the key tells us is about 'spatial visions', stations (or topics) include 'The Sun', 'Camera Obscura' and 'Curved Space'. Just like the real tube map, some stations have more than one line, so from 'Curved space' you can connect to topics along the black 'Higher Dimensions' line.
The choice of the tube map is particularly apposite, says Nick, because "it's a great example of the influence of science on art and design." Originally designed by Harry Beck, and inspired by electrical circuit diagrams, the map, says Nick, "is topological rather than metrical - it's the connections between stations that matter rather than the distance between them."
A lot of children find maths off-putting, says Nick, particularly in the early stages of secondary school. "A lot of people leave school thinking that maths is about grindingly tedious calculations and you're either right or wrong with a question. People associate mathematics with failure because they can't do a particular calculation - and that's more the case with maths than other subjects because you can test people very precisely in mathematics whether they've got an answer wrong or right."
Nick, who has a PhD in theoretical particle physics, argues that maths is really about ideas and concepts that can be startling and intriguing. "Even mathematicians," he points out, "tend to find calculations a bit tedious." He believes passionately that maths teaching can learn from the teaching of the arts, by telling pupils more about the history of the subject and the people who made advances in it.
Connections in Space is certainly full of ideas and associations that will be new to many. Click on the station 'Tessellations', for example, and you will see text explaining what tessellations are ("regular patterns of tiles that cover surfaces without overlapping or leaving any gaps") and illustrations from the work of Dali and MC Esher. The text goes on to explain how Islamic artists used different kinds of tessellations, and how the sculptor John Robinson was influenced by the mosaics in the Alhambra Palace.
For those of us who think of mathematics as being largely about incomprehensible algebraic equations, it feels like a door opening into a different world: the CD introduces you to ideas you've never encountered before, and enables you to make connections you'd never previously seen. One of the CD's impressive features is its range - the authors use artists as diverse as Vermeer, Antony Gormley and Jackson Pollock to illustrate mathematical concepts. And there's not a calculation in sight.
One of Virtual Image's earlier CD-Roms, Art and Mathematics, is billed as a "thought-provoking look at the influence of mathematics on the visual arts." Connections in Space, too, could be seen as a way, not just of introducing an artistic perspective to maths, but of introducing a mathematical and scientific perspective to art. One of the CD's authors, Professor Martin Kemp, collaborated with David Hockney in his efforts to show that, from the Renaissance on, artists used optical equipment to help them create more accurate representations. So one topic deals with Vermeer's use of the camera obscura as an aid to his 'supreme naturalism' - while pointing out that the ability to "cajole our perceptual system into collaborative action" and create a "compelling illusion" is Vermeer's alone.
The project is an entirely non-commercial venture. It initially received funding of £10,000 from Sciart, a consortium which encourages collaboration between the arts and sciences, and has since received additional funding from the Gruber Foundation, NESTA, the Millennium Mathematics Project and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC). Copies of the CD-Rom will be sent out to all secondary schools in the UK this summer or earlier.
There are a few possible next stages. If the CD-Rom is well-received, it's likely that the team will add new stations to the tube map (there are 57 at the moment). Nick believes that there is an appetite among the general public for more information about the interplay of science and art, and is hoping to reach a wider audience by turning the CD into a glossy book. There have also been requests, he says, to set up a forum on art and mathematics on the Virtual Image site.
The decline in numbers of students applying to study mathematics and physics at university suggests that a fresh approach to both subjects is overdue. Can Connections in Space help turn around pupils' perception of maths as dull and difficult? "The most important thing is to get pupils interested in the subject because there's loads of scope for exploring around it," says Nick. "If the interest is there, people will be prepared to put in the effort to learn whatever is on the curriculum. The further you go into the subject, the more interesting it becomes."
Links
Connections in Space: www.btinternet.com/~connectionsinspace
Virtual Image: www.virtualimage.co.uk
February 2005
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