Eight Fold Way

Installed at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at Berkeley, theEight Fold Way overlooks the San Francisco Bay from the Berleley hills. A black serpentine colummn, rising from the center of a black circular tiling, grabs a white polished Carrara Marble tetrahedron- as though catching a falling star.

The tiling represents hyperbolic space projected into a circular disk. Water jets blasting at 55,000 pounds per square inch cut 232 stone blocks into 232 unique seven-sided tiles within an accuracy of one thousandth of an inch. The size of the heptagonal tiles diminishes as you near the edge of the disk, to an eventual accretion. A select number of these tiles, darker than the others, make up the fundamental domain- that set of tiles which cover the tetrahedron.

Ridges and grooves wind over the gleaming white tetrahedral form, quietly showing how to map the fundamental domain onto the tetrahedron. Run a finger along any groove or ridge, alternating left and right turns at each corner, and in eight pivots, you'll return to your starting point.

"In examining sculpture," says Helaman Ferguson, "you should use all of the body, not just the eyes. I carve sculpture to withstand the human touch. As a sculptor, I want to run my fingers over sculptures held in museums, who doesn't?"

Cf., Claire Ferguson, "Helaman Ferguson: Mathematics in Stone and Bronze", Meridian Creative Group, Publisher, 1994, pages 32-33, 74, 76.; Silvio Levy, editor, The Eightfold Way: The Beauty of Klein's Quartic Curve, Mathematical Sciencdes Research Institute Publications 35, Cambridge University Press, first edition 1999, first paperback edition 2001, ISBN 0-521-80209-1 (hardback) 0-521-00419-5 (paperback).

photos by jonathan ferguson

description by jonathan ferguson and claire ferguson