This exhibition celebrates visual splendors of the natural world, focusing on how earth scientists and mathematicians use color and scale to measure and interpret geological and oceanographic processes. As a pendant exhibition to Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Sculpture, this show generates compelling synergies between the perspectives of arts and sciences.

On view is a dazzling array of samples from Bowdoin College's historic crystal and mineral collection alongside photographs of brilliantly colored micro-thin mineral slices. The patterns and colors that appear in these minerals offer clues as to how mountain ranges formed over time. The exhibition also features evocative photographs from Arctic and Antarctic regions, taken by Bowdoin faculty and their colleagues, and which reveal cyclical processes of sea ice formation. Visitors can also interact with virtual modules from the Mathematics of Planet Earth exhibition competition.

Organized with Bowdoin College faculty Collin Roesler, chair, Earth and Oceanographic Science; Emily Peterman, assistant professor, Earth and Oceanographic Science; and Mary Lou Zeeman, R. Wells Johnson Professor of Mathematics.

This exhibition is one of several programs related to Bowdoin's participation in the International MPE 2013 program.

Related Events

Tuesday, April 9, 2013 | 7:00 p.m. | Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Gallery Talk: Arts and Sciences in Conversation

A gallery talk with Bowdoin faculty Jim Mullen, associate professor of art; Collin Roesler, associate professor of earth and oceanographic science; and Mary Lou Zeeman, R. Wells Johnson Professor of Mathematics. This interdisciplinary conversation will focus on the exhibitions Per Kirkeby: Painting and Sculpture  and Sense of Scale, Measure of Color: Art, Science, and Mathematics of Planet Earth and will generate compelling synergies between the arts and sciences.

Friday, April 12, 2013 | 6:00 p.m. | Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center

Lecture: Mathematics and the Melting Polar Ice Caps Kenneth Golden, Professor of Mathematics, University of Utah

Dr. Golden will discuss how mathematical models of composite materials and statistical physics are being used to study key sea ice processes and to advance how sea ice is represented in climate models. This work is helping to improve projections of the fate of Earth's ice packs, and the response of polar ecosystems. In addition, a video from a 2012 Antarctic expedition where sea ice properties were measured will be shown. This is second Dan E. Christie Mathematics Lecture, sponsored by the Mathematics Department and co-sponsored by the Bowdoin College Museum of Art and the NSF Math Climate Research Network.

Sunday, April 21, 2013 | 2:00 p.m. | Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Gallery Talk:  Sense of Scale, Measure of Color: Art, Science, and Mathematics of Planet Earth

Bowdoin College faculty members Colin Roesler, associate professor of earth and oceanographic science, Emily Peterman, assistant professor, earth and oceanographic science, and Mary Lou Zeeman, R. Wells Johnson Professor of Mathematics, will introduce the exhibition.