Much of Van Aelst's work is focused on unconventional representations of information, and he is especially interested in using ordinary household objects to illustrate the key concepts that hold life and the universe together. In addition to his more edible works, he also uses nuts and bolts to illustrate the phases of the moon, represents a single heartbeat in parted hair, and heaps together Christmas lights in the shape of the human brain.

[Kevin Van Aelst via Make]

Chromosomes
Logarithmic Spiral
Beta Carotene
Golden Mean
Dragon Curve
Cellular Mitosis (Krispy Kreme)
Cantor Set
Periodic Table
Sierpinski's Arrowhead
Common Clouds

Fermat's Room, from Spanish directors Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopeña, manages to turn math into a deadly, mysterious game. Everyone assembled in the room has secrets, of course, and motivations they are hiding. But as the walls literally close in on the characters, increasing desperation forces them into confrontation. As they try to unravel who is behind the crime, they must solve various "enigmas" to keep back the walls (though some of the problems are a bit too familiar, like the "Light Switch Puzzle").

Math is presented throughout as almost a magical skill, wielded by experts who treat its pursuit as something worth stealing and dying for. It has already brought some of them fame and fortune. Like superheroes, they've all been given special identities to wear: Pascal, Galois, Oliva, and Hilbert.

At the same time that it is concerned with theorems and numerical traps, the movie looks at the ways technology can be programmed to work independently against us. Only raw mortal reasoning can stave it off. Fermat's Room also explores some very human failings of conscience, and yields a high level of drama between its characters. When there is little room left, paranoia and accusation rage in a way reminiscent of The Twilight Zone's best tension.

It is rare that cinematic heroes get to be pure mathematicians, but here that knowledge is essential for survival, front and center. With the terror of encroaching walls — an effective scene-setter in everything from Star Wars to that other people-in-a-box-with-math thriller, 1997's Cube — the plot is always pushed forward and does its best to keep you guessing, even if the revelations aren't always earth-shaking. This is a fine, fluid production, well-cast and visually appealing. It's definitely the best film you'll see about sexy angst-laden imperiled math geniuses this year.

You can watch the trailer below.

The Imagine Science Film Festival is running a rich and varied program of events until October 25th around New York City. All screenings are gloriously free, and all of the movies find an inspirational spark in science.

There's a slideshow of dynamical systems images, narrated by math Professor Lasse Rempe, here. The images are very intricate and aesthetically pleasing - each point in an image is essentially its own dynamical system, reacting to the rules within its equation. Dr. Rempe also discusses briefly the nature of art, and whether such mathematically produced images count as "art." He feels that the artist's intention is the deciding factor, which brings to mind some interesting questions about the possibility of computer-generated art.

Some of the images are just plain peculiar. What exactly are we looking at here? What equation created this? I'll leave it to the io9 readers' fertile imaginations to decide. Images by: BBC.

Audio slideshow: The art of mathematics. [BBC News]

Says a summary of the research from UC San Diego:

Much of the richness in images created with photon mapping algorithms comes from precise accounting for the amount of light is in a scene and where that light is. Photon mapping algorithms provide a way to follow the light around the scene, as it bounces off various objects and lands on other objects. Photon mapping can also determine how light will interact with fog, smoke or other "participating media" that absorb, reflect and scatter some portion of the light - a task that has been traditionally quite computationally costly to perform because it requires sampling the light at many locations in order to make sure that nearly all the light is accounted for.

"Instead of computing the light at thousands of discrete points along the ray between the camera and the object, which is the conventional approach, we compute the lighting along the whole length of the ray all at once," said [computer science researcher Wojciech] Jarosz.

Computer Science Fog Machine [UC San Diego]

The study of babies' math skills — which did involve silly EEG hats like the one above — also revealed something more general about human brains. When we look at a group of objects, different parts of our brains process the number of objects and the type of objects. So we recognize how many duckies there are with a different brain region than the one that recognizes that we are looking at duckies.

Says a release about the study:

Behavioral experiments indicate that infants aged 4 ½ months or older possess an early "number sense" that allows them to detect changes in the number of objects. However, the neural basis of this ability was previously unknown. This week in the online journal PLoS Biology, Véronique Izard, Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz, and Stanislas Dehaene provide brain imaging evidence showing that very young infants are sensitive to both the number and identity of objects, and these pieces of information are processed by distinct neural pathways.

Distinct Neural Pathways for Object Identity and Number in Young Infants [PLoS Biology]