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Patrick, Robin, Fabskimo & Selmar

Podcast 47 - Blocks and Escher

Episode 55. Edmund Harriss of the University of Leicester speaks about his research area of tiling patterns and how this leads him into maths outreach. For more info and show notes visit www.travelsinamathematicalworld.co.uk

In 1956 the Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher made an unusual lithograph with the title "Print Gallery." It shows a young man viewing a print in an exhibition gallery. Among the buidlings depicted on the print, he sees paradoxically the very same gallery that he is standing in. A lot is known about the way in which Escher made his lithograph. It is not nearly as well known that it contains a hidden "Droste effect," or infinite repetition; but this is brought to light by a mathematical analysis of the studies used by Escher. On the basis of this discovery, a team of mathematicians at Leiden produced a series of hallucinating computer animations. These show, among other things, what happens inside the mysterious spot in the middle of the lithograph that Escher left blank.