Hyperbola Finds Love

2023

 

What's it like to always approach but never reach, to feel for the touch that never comes? In plane geometry, the curve of a hyperbola endlessly reaches out toward a fixed straight line, its asymptote.  Stretching toward infinity, every hyperbola approaching ever closer to its goal, but sadly never achieving touch.

 

With the romantic addition of a third spatial dimension and rotation, however, hyperbolas can approach, and even touch, straight-line objectives along their entire lengths.  

 

In this sculpture, a brass hyperbola meets a flirtatious and mathematically inclined straight-line figure. This line, executing a carefully planned eccentric rotation, sweeps out a hyperboloid in three dimensions. 

 

In geometric courtship, the straight-line sweeps caressingly close to the entire length of the hyperbola. Three dimensions can improve relationships!

 

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