Thursday, February 16, 2012

Workshop next month and one more gyroidal graphitic structure

I sent the first bead model of gyroidal graphitic structure (GGS) for the math art exhibition of Joint Mathematical Meeting last month. The model is still in Chern's place in Cambridge, MA.

But, I am going to have a three-hour workshop, Molecular Modeling of Fullerenes with Mathematical Beading: a Hands-on Approach, next month in my department for 40 students from Okayama University (Japan) and National Taiwan Universities.

I plan to show students how to construct molecular models of fullerenes with beads and how to correctly interpret microscopic meaning of these bead models. Particularly, students will learn simple beading techniques and create a dodecahedron and a truncated icosahedron, which are C20 and C60 respectively, in this workshop. Additionally, I also wish to have an exhibition of bead models we made in the last few years. Since the bead model of GGS is not with me now, so I decided to make one more bead model of gyroidal graphitic structure.

The bead model is now almost half-done. I wish I can finish the whole model at the end of this month. The model shown in the following photos contains six helical strips. It is quite subtle to make this structure even though I have made one GGS already. At the beginning, I thought I was familiar with the structural rules of the GGS, but I still incorrectly made a D-type TPMS, instead of G-type TPMS, the first time.

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