Snow Sculpting

with

Mathematics

News Release

Jan 25, 1999

Noted mathematical sculptor Helaman Ferguson led his team to the successful construction of a 12-foot high Costa surface made of snow at the 9th annual Breckenridge (Colo.) Interational Snow Sculpture Championships. Ferguson's assistants were Macalester math professors Dan Schwalbe and Stan Wagon and Macalester student Tamas Nemeth.

A Costa surface is a new type of shape -- an example of a minimal surface -- discovered 15 years ago by the Brazilian mathematician C. Costa. He was inspired by the skirts and hats of the dancers at Rio's Carnival, and this theme is evident in the sweeping curves and shapes of the surface. From both artistic and mathematical standpoints the surface is noteworthy. The sculpture's title is "Invisible Handhsake", which refers to the fact that it represents the space between two hands that come together but do not touch. Every point of the surface is a saddle point, giving it great structural strength. Thus the team was able to thin the snow surface down to three to four inches.

Technically speaking, the surface has negative curvature at every point. The team started with a 20-ton block of specially prepared snow. After roughing it out, drilling the main holes, and then smoothing the final form, all team members gained a strong appreciation for the power of negative curvature!

The tools used were incredibly diverse, from a large ice fishing auger to various small smoothing tools. About 14 tons of snow were removed to reveal the ultimate shape.

The team was sponsored by Wolfram Research, Inc., whose Mathematica software was instrumental in gaining images of the shape. Invisible Handshake is dedicated to the memory of Al Gray, who did much pioneering work on making the generation of Costa images in Mathematica simple and fast.

 

day0_contestblocks.jpg
day0_contestblocks.jpg
day1_block.jpg
day1_block.jpg
day1_blocka.jpg
day1_blocka.jpg
day1_helaman.jpg
day1_helaman.jpg
day1_scalffold.jpg
day1_scalffold.jpg
day1_stan.jpg
day1_stan.jpg
day1_tamas.jpg
day1_tamas.jpg
day2_block.jpg
day2_block.jpg
day2_blue.jpg
day2_blue.jpg
day2_chisel.jpg
day2_chisel.jpg
day2_inspection.jpg
day2_inspection.jpg
day2_startday.jpg
day2_startday.jpg
day3_blocka.jpg
day3_blocka.jpg
day3_blockb.jpg
day3_blockb.jpg
day3_dan.jpg
day3_dan.jpg
day3_helaman.jpg
day3_helaman.jpg
day3_stan.jpg
day3_stan.jpg
day3_tamas.jpg
day3_tamas.jpg
day4_block.jpg
day4_block.jpg
day4_block2.jpg
day4_block2.jpg
day4_childthru.jpg
day4_childthru.jpg
day4_helaman.jpg
day4_helaman.jpg
day4_work.jpg
day4_work.jpg
day5_daybreak.jpg
day5_daybreak.jpg
day5_final.jpg
day5_final.jpg
day5_final2.jpg
day5_final2.jpg
day5_helamanspeaking.jpg
day5_helamanspeaking.jpg
day5_teamwork.jpg
day5_teamwork.jpg