Curiosity And Einsteins

I was reading Scientific American one day and discovered a new thing I had never heard of before. This happens every time I read SciAm...no surprise there. But this was different.

The article was about the discovery of a new shape that can create an infinite never-repeating pattern. Let me break that sentence's key words down:

"discovery" – a person (not a working scientist or mathematician) figured out what shape could do this, which has been sought for decades, at least

"infinite" – like, literally, forever...which is hard to wrap your head around conceptually, so let's just say you could tile the entire planet Earth and never repeat the pattern (but way more than that...because it's actually infinite!!)

"never-repeating" – NEVER REPEATING!

This new shape is called an "einstein". Not because of that guy you've heard of before, but for the German meaning of "ein stein", which is "one stone". (Another new thing I learned!)

OK, I guess I must be a bit of a nerd that I find this so fascinating. But I'm not the only one. In fact...

A few months later, I read another article, this one in the 纽约时报 , about a contest run by the National Museum of Mathematics in New York and the United Kingdom Mathematics Trust in London. They asked people for creative renditions of an einstein and 245 people stepped up with some really fun ideas.

Why am I writing about this? Well, it's about math, innovative thinking, creativity, visual elements...all the stuff that I care about.

And I just love that einsteins have, I'm sure, very practical applications in science and math, though I don't remember what they are. And it doesn't matter (to me, right now). Because I also love that they have very impractical applications too - like a Tetris-like game, edibles, bathroom decorations, and the like, as seen in the NYT article.

Einstein (yeah, the guy this time), famously said, "I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." I love that the human mind is capable of great curiosity, incredible collaborative problem-solving, and we will never reach the limits of discovery.

So be curious. In your work, in your hobbies, in your life. You (and we all) will be better for it.

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I'm writing a book right now, and one of the chapters is about curiosity. And I read a great book this year, which you should check out (Curious, by Ian Leslie), if you're curious about curiosity itself!

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