Mathematics Peep Shows: Symmetry

The Eamses made five “peep shows” for the IBM Mathematica exhibition: Eratosthenes, something about functions, Symmetry, Topology, and 2n. Featured in the Festival International du Film de Montreal, 1961 and London Film Festival Outstanding Film of the Year, 1963. Symmetry introduces the concept of symmetry and its various degrees. Suggests that one way of quantifying an object’s symmetry is determining how many different ways the object could ft in a box shaped precisely to its form (therefore a perfect sphere could fit into a “sphere-box” in an infinite number of ways, but a curled up dog could probably fit in its box just one way).

2 minutes, 39 seconds