Escher and Elliptic Curves

Posted by michael on Tuesday July 30, 2002 @12:13AM from the fill-in-the-blanks dept.

melquiades writes "Mathematician Hendrik Lenstra was struck by the blank spot in M. C. Escher's Print Gallery . Why is the spot blank there, he wondered, and what should go in it? Although Escher, who had only a high-school mathematics background, drew the picture by brilliant and methodical intuition, the mathematical machinery underlying the image turned out to be elliptic curves (which come up in factorization, cryptography, and the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem). Lenstra and his colleagues were able to generate several breathtaking possible completions for the missing space. Read the story at the ever-registration-required NYT."

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Re:Anal Retentive by foofboy · 2002-07-30 00:38 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Your views intrigue me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Godel, Escher, Bach by kirkb · 2002-07-30 04:12 · Score: 2, Offtopic

Wow, I can't beleive that no slashdotter has mentioned Douglas Hofstadter's excellent book "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid"

The book is over 20 years old and still a must-read for anyone who is interested in CS and/or art and/or music. It's fun, funny, and will make your brain hurt.

Grab it at your favorite book store|website.

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