I’ve learnt a new word.

Wracking my brain for the past week I’ve tried to calculate how to make a dome thing that looks like a parabola but in 3D. Why does high school mathematics slip from the memory immediately after graduation? From the effort it took to cram and practice functions, calculus and integration I decided that there would be no chance of forgetting this stuff. By the way, as anyone ever heard of the word “paraboloid”?

This is a model of a sake vessel that I’m going to make for an exhibition this northern autumn in Osaka. Tin is very good for containing sake as the metal ionises the liquid and making the sake tastier. Not having made a vessel before or in tin I was told by a master tinsmith to make a model out of paper so we can make a mold. I love my master tinsmith. So I tried to research how to draw parabolae again so I can make an accurate drawing and calculate the volume of liquid it can hold. 180ml or 1 Go in sake language is appropriate for one round.

Not so much luck on relearning mathematics, better to wait until I can have my future children teach me. However, I am so proud of myself for making this model. It’s so beautiful, like an American football, a blimp of a butterfly egg. It’s amazing how people make structures like these without it falling on people’s heads. Architects deserve everyone’s admiration. I don’t know of many but my favourites are Hundertwasser and Gaudi. Anyone making crazy curves I look to with awe.

Now I look back on it though, if only my mathematics teacher said something like ‘Pretend you are an apprentice to a Renaissance architect that has just been commissioned to construct a new palace for the Medici family. You have been given the task of making the calculations for the domes on the palace. Plot the points where the windows will go. If the roof is to be covered with tiles how many tiles do you need?  Construct this dome in paper’. What an awesome maths problem would that have been?

The next step is to convince master tinsmith that I can make this.