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Cullinane

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Posted by: m759 Original: 5/10/2008 8:00 AM Comments: 0 eProps: 0 Read Comments Post a Comment Back to Your Xanga Site

Saturday, May 10, 2008

MoMA Goes to
Kindergarten

"... the startling thesis of Mr. Brosterman's new book, 'Inventing Kindergarten' (Harry N. Abrams, $39.95): that everything the giants of modern art and architecture knew about abstraction they learned in kindergarten, thanks to building blocks and other educational toys designed by Friedrich Froebel, a German educator, who coined the term 'kindergarten' in the 1830's."

-- "Was Modernism Born
     in Toddler Toolboxes?"
   by Trip Gabriel, New York Times,
     April 10, 1997

RELATED MATERIAL

Figure 1 --
Concept from 1819:

Cubic crystal system

(Footnotes 1 and 2)

Figure 2 --
The Third Gift, 1837:

Froebel's Third Gift

Froebel, the inventor of
kindergarten, worked as
an assistant to the
crystallographer Weiss
mentioned in Fig. 1.

(Footnote 3)

Figure 3 --
The Third Gift, 1906:

Seven partitions of the eightfold cube in a book from 1906

Seven partitions of the eightfold cube in a book from 1906

Figure 4 --
Solomon's Cube,
1981 and 1983:

Solomon's Cube - A 1981 design by Steven H. Cullinane

Figure 5 --
Design Cube, 2006:

Design Cube 4x4x4 by Steven H. Cullinane

The above screenshot shows a
moveable JavaScript display
of a space of six dimensions
(over the two-element field).

(To see how the display works,
try the Kaleidoscope Puzzle first.)

For some mathematical background, see

Footnotes:

1. Image said to be after Holden and Morrison, Crystals and Crystal Growing, 1982
2. Curtis Schuh, "The Library: Biobibliography of Mineralogy," article on Mohs
3. Bart Kahr, "Crystal Engineering in Kindergarten" (pdf), Crystal Growth & Design, Vol. 4 No. 1, 2004, 3-9

Posted 5/10/2008 8:00 AM - 0 comments