Magic, origami and puzzles

When Demaine was six years old, he helped design puzzles with his father Martin Demaine. The Erik and Dad Puzzle Company distributed their work to toy stores across Canada. So began Erik’s journey into the interactions between algorithms and the arts. His talk will examine how art inspires the mathematics and vice versa and he will provide examples, including how a font he helped design led to building robots and how studying curved creases in origami led to sculptures at MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Admission is free, but the audience will be invited to participate in some live magic demonstrations. Erik Demaine was born in Halifax and entered Dalhousie University at the age of 12 and completed his BSc when only 14. His PhD dissertation at Waterloo, seminal in the field of computational origami, was awarded the Governor General's Gold Medal and the Canadian NSERC Doctoral Prize in 2003, for the best PhD thesis and research in Canada (one of four awards). Still in his twenties, Erik is already a professor at MIT with over 160 published papers. Who:Erik Demaine - Massachusetts Institute of Technology What: The fifth Richard and Louise Guy Lecture Where: University of Calgary, Murray Fraser Hall, room 162 When: Thurs., Sept. 16, at 4 p.m. Details: Free admission. For more information, contact: Leanne Yohemas Senior Communications Manager University of Calgary - Faculty of Science T: 403-220-5144 C: 403-540-6552