I’ve just finished helping my high schooler with a paper on Einstein and Picasso. Turns out they both were really into popular scientific writings of their time. One of the biggest influences on them both was Henri Poincaré, a mathemetician and scientist author. Poincaré wrote books for the layperson interested the latest scientific thought and breakthroughs. Poincaré made science fun, and he loved to play with time and space. His imaginings playfully danced around the ideas which Einstein and Picasso later used in their work to some effect. (understatement) He was part of the catalytic force which jump-started Picasso and Einstein down the path to integrating time/space relativity into their work.
It’s a “fun” bit of history. Both these great artists were very playful in their approach. They were having fun. Steve Martin wrote a play about this dynamic, and Arthur Miller wrote a book. Both are fun reads.
Here are two videos, non-sequiturs to be sure, in which time and space are made fun.
Kids making time/space math fun
Making the stairs funner than the escalator
Thanks to Sherry for sharing.
Now lets go out and have some fun. I’ll be leaving in just minutes to help volunteers at an elementary school teach 4th graders to make their own animated movies.
Fun!
