Maths Sweaters

A gentle but reassuring thump is heard as the ball leaves the player’s boot rolling gracefully along the green pitch in beautiful straight lines. The crowd goes wild. From a distance the ball looks round, but closer inspection reveals a complex mathematical object consisting of twelve pentagonal (five-sided) faces and twenty hexagonal (six-sided) faces, called a truncated icosahedron, from the Greek words eikosi, meaning twenty, and hedron, meaning seat, and truncated because it is obtained from a regular icosahedron by the modification of certain faces.

A beautiful ball for a beautiful game, it is as much a geometric form as an art form and the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics recently fitted their staff with sweaters featuring a soccer ball and with the phrase 20 TEN emblazoned to its left. The sweaters are white with green and golden yellow lines adorning their edges, the colours of our national soccer team and the same three colours as the centre stripes of the South African national flag. They will keep their wearers warm during the cold winter months and also keep them looking stylish during the rest of the year.

Members of the department have been wearing these blazers on Fridays especially and visitors are welcome to drop in at the department for a closer look.