Designing Sculptures Inspired by Symmetric High-Genus Fullerenes with Mathematical Beading
Chern Chuang, Bih-Yaw Jin, and Chia-Chin Tsoo

Proceedings of Bridges 2011: Mathematics, Music, Art, Architecture, Culture
Pages 523–526
Short Papers

Abstract

We present a scenario of building beautiful sculptures inspired by high-genus molecules utilizing traditional beading techniques. These hypothetical molecules are highly symmetric trivalent fullerenes composed of hundreds of exclusively sp2-hybridized carbon atoms, with multiple handles. We describe the construction rules governing the structural features of the sculptures, which are basically two-layer regular polyhedra connected through straight tubules. Readers can follow the instructions to construct their own sculptures. The resulting beaded structures elegantly and faithfully reflect the geometry of the molecules obtained by sophisticated computer modeling approach, which themselves form a beautiful display of communication between science and art.

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