geek moment of the day

[phantom_child]

the math colloquia we're required to go to are usually fairly dull, but today's was fantastic. The lecture wasn't really about math, it was about coral reefs. A side topic of the presentation was that mathematicians have been studying hyperbolic space for two thousand years, ever since Euclid, but no one had ever been able to construct a model of hyperbolic space. that is, until 1997, when a Cornell professor from Latvia looked at the equations and said, "hey, I bet I could crochet that." and she did.

http://www.origamitessellations.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/crocheted_hyperbolic.jpg

someday, I want to be that awesome.