Lobby Art
When you walk into the lobby of the Tome building, you might not at first notice the floor under your feet. It has a beautiful design laid out in a circular pattern that represents the unit circle in a uniquely visual way.
In the words of Professor of Physics and Astronomy Robert Boyle: The unit circle idea is used in the teaching of trig functions (I learned it this way in High School and still "animate" trig functions in my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohp6Okk_tww and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q55T6LeTvsA and here are all three basic functions: https://www.geogebra.org/m/cNEtsbvC). The other thing about the unit circle is that it illustrates the definition of the radian. This is the more "natural" (read: more mathematically useful but not what people are taught at first and consequently more confusing) way of measuring an angle. Think about it this way. Consider a circle of radius R (in the case of our unit circle R=1 but that does not matter for now). We know that all the way around a circle once is 360° but that also means you have gone around one circumference, and we all learned in school that the circumference of a circle of radius R is 2πR (that should read 2 pi R). Well, of course even though once around is always 360 degrees, 2πR is bigger if R is bigger. But if we ask for the ratio of the circumference to the radius, that is always a fixed number, 2πR/R = 2π . So we measure angle such that all the way around a circle is 2π units (which we call radians) then two pi of these units represents 360 degrees, and one of these units is 360°/2π which is about 57°. That is what is marked on the Unit circle, an angle of 57° And for that angle, the length of the curved part of the circle between the lines of the angle is exactly the radius of the circle. This leads to a very useful formula, that if the length of the curved part of a circle is s, and the radius of the circle is R, the angle that the ends of that piece of the circle of length s makes is, in this radian units ø = s/R (that ø should be the Greek letter theta but I think it might be the Greek letter phi instead.). If you work this out, then a quarter of the way around a circle (1/4) x 2πR makes for an angle of π/2 radians, half way around a circle is (1/2) x 2πR or π radians, and three quarters of the way around is (3/4) x 2πR or 3π/2. And I think those are all marked on the circle too.
There are two more incredible objects in this lobby that you don't want to miss. The first is a pendulum created by the late Rick Lindsey, beloved technician for the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Rick was known for not only being able to build ANYTHING, but also for the beauty of his creations, which proved that one does not need to sacrifice form for the sake of function. Take a minute to admire this pendulum that teaches students about kinetic energy, while also exhibiting a flawless aesthetic.
And this barrel is actually a brilliant piece of performance art that represents the artistic vision of Professor of Physics and Astronomy David Jackson. To see a video of his creation of this work check out the department's Facebook page HERE.
