Welcome to the blog for The Mathematician's Garden, an art piece being built for Burning Man 2011. Here, I'll be posting project updates, pictures, and videos of the garden as it grows. You can find an initial (and constantly evolving) description of the project in our design document, but here's the vision and overview:
For people, happiness is a function of environment. The stimulus might be direct, like a yummy dessert, or indirect, like the happiness of those around them. Such is the case with the Mathematician's Garden, where the metal plants and flowers thrive or wilt (as indicated by the color and brightness of the lights that decorate them) based on direct or indirect stimuli. This ecosystem connects directly with the people of Black Rock City, who control the direct stimuli.
The garden consists of three concentric rings: the elevated, LED-lit metal garden at the center, a perimeter to prevent direct access to the garden, and twelve numbered pressure pads arranged like a clock.
The garden consists of two types of plants: the primary and the secondary. All plants are wired with LEDs that can change both color and brightness. The primary plants react to direct stimulus from the pressure pads, as explained below. The secondary plants react to the happiness of the primary plants. The design of each primary plant reflects the mathematical way in which it reacts to direct stimuli.
Visitors to the garden control the direct stimuli via numbered pressure pads, and the garden performs its hidden computation. The mathematics underlying the plants are suggested by their designs. For example, a Squares Shrub reacts to numbers that are perfect squares (1, 4, and 9) and incorporates the obvious geometry in its leaves. The secondary stimulus is governed by the results of these computations: the happiness of the nearby primary plants. Some secondary plants thrive on the good health of those around them (symbiotes), while others dim unhappily (parasites).
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