Clarksville, TN – Austin Peay State University’s (APSU) Dr. John Nicholson, a professor in the APSU Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, recently traveled to Canada for the 2023 Bridges Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The annual Bridges Conference began in 1998 and takes place in different locations around the world each year. Scholars travel to the conference to see how mathematics pushes the boundaries of art, music, architecture, and culture and can also apply for their art to be exhibited at the conference.
“I have been into the sciences and math since I was a little kid,” Nicholson said. “I was also always doing something art-related, like music or drawing. I went through gallons and buckets of crayons, so I was always drawing and playing different musical instruments.”
During the conference, Nicholson presented on using shape-based expressions in image creation and was featured in this year’s art exhibition.
“Bridges is unique compared to the computer-related conference I attended,” Dr. Nicholson said. “It’s very different compared to those because it is a combination of people with strong backgrounds in math, another set of people with strong backgrounds in art, and people with strong backgrounds in programming. And they all share a love for these sorts of mathematical, artistic images.”
Nicholson has been to Bridges three times and has been accepted into the conference’s art exhibit each time. He also utilizes art in the classroom to show his students how it can be used to visualize mathematics.
“[Art] introduces them to a lot of things,” he said. “They’re learning how to create a picture. That’s not something you normally do early on in a program. So that’s important.”
Although his students may not go on to create art after graduating, Nicholson said the concepts can help them succeed in other fields.
“Now [let us say], I’m working on a website where I need to take all this data and make images; you don’t have to make as big a leap anymore,” he said. “It gives you practice writing algorithms. Every time you play a video game, you use linear algebra. [Students are] so far removed from it since they didn’t create the games. They don’t see those connections. So, to see this math formula here, and then there’s a pretty picture over here. You see that, and you get a better connection.”
“Math is ultimately a way of describing how things work,” he said. “How fast a train accelerates or decelerates, how much a disease like COVID-19 spreads. Mathematics, even without art, is a very creative field. It takes creativity to understand new areas, takes hard work, and you eventually start seeing those connections.”
Mathematics and art may seem vastly different to the naked eye, but they aren’t so different after all.
For more information regarding Bridges 2023 and the Bridges 2023 art gallery, see the resources below:
www.bridgesmathart.org/
https://gallery.bridgesmathart.org/exhibitions/2023-bridges-conference
