Catalyst Conversations in partnership with MIT List Visual Arts Center presents:

Atoms. Geometry. Algorithms.

Tess Smidt in conversation with Erik Demaine
Moderated by Deborah Davidson

Thursday, December 15, 2022
 Bartos Theater

In the early 1920’s Danish Physicist Niels Bohr was struggling to reimagine the structure of matter. …he realized that science needed new metaphor. ...As Bohr said, “When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry.” Ordinary words couldn’t capture the data.”
 
Tess Smidt and Erik Demaine share a relationship to both science and art. They address the many interests that they each pursue in their respective practices, among them the parallels and importance of iteration and ways they each endeavor to capture data. Their passion for what they do is guided by their openness to working across the (sometime) borders between science and art.
 
The research group Smidt heads, The Atomic Architects, works at the intersection of physics, geometry, and machine learning to design algorithms that aid in the understanding and design of physical systems. As an undergraduate she designed the Cosmic Ray Chandeliers, a science-art installation located on M.I.T.’s campus on the 5th floor between buildings 16 and 26. The Chandeliers illuminate upon detecting particles, called muons, created in cosmic ray showers. Like other projects she it demonstrates her deep knowledge and adventurness.
 
Demaine’s interest in and work with Origami along with Martin Demaine is well known. He says “My favorite type of results are universality results which prove that, in a certain model of folding, everything is possible. Typically, they come with an efficient algorithm for finding the folding; pure existential proofs are rare. If we cannot hope to fold everything, the next best thing is to have an efficient (polynomial) algorithm, both for detecting whether an object is foldable, and if so, for finding an efficient folding.”

Tess Smidt is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT.
Tess earned her SB in Physics from MIT in 2012 and her PhD in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2018. Her research focuses on machine learning that incorporates physical and geometric constraints, with applications to materials design. Prior to joining the MIT EECS faculty, she was the 2018 Alvarez Postdoctoral Fellow in Computing Sciences at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Software Engineering Intern on the Google Accelerated Sciences team where she developed Euclidean symmetry equivariant neural networks which naturally handle 3D geometry and geometric tensor data.

Erik Demaine is a Professor in Computer Science at MIT. His research interests range throughout algorithms, from data structures for improving web searches to the geometry of understanding how proteins fold to the computational difficulty of playing games. He received a MacArthur Fellowship as a “computational geometer tackling and solving difficult problems related to folding and bending—moving readily between the theoretical and the playful, with a keen eye to revealing the former in the latter”. He appears in the origami documentaries Between the Folds and NOVA's The Origami Revolution. He cowrote a book about the theory of folding (Geometric Folding Algorithms), and a book about the computational complexity of games (Games, Puzzles, and Computation). His interests span the connections between mathematics and art, including curved-crease sculptures in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Renwick Gallery in the Smithsonian.

Founded in 2012, Catalyst Conversations creates programs that pair artists and scientists for intimate conversations. These conversations have explored topics at the forefront of science and art-making today such as theoretical mathematics, watershed conservation, public art, STEAM education, neuroscience and more. In a region full of innovation and knowledge, Catalyst Conversations offers a unique opportunity for participants of all ages and educational backgrounds to access new knowledge. Ideas are not only presented to the public, they are held open for extended conversation allowing a unique entry to intellectual inquiry.

As MIT’s contemporary art museum, the List Center’s history is deeply connected to the Institute’s long-standing commitment to supporting the arts and humanities on campus. MIT List Visual Arts Center provides artists with a space to freely experiment and push boundaries. Our galleries and programs are always free and open to all.

Top Image: The output of three randomly initialized symmetry-preserving neural networks when given a tetrahedron geometry (top) and octahedron geometry (bottom) as input. The outputs have equal or higher symmetry than the inputs."
Tess Smidt, Euclidean Symmetry and Equivariance in Machine Learning, Trends in Chemistry Volume 3, Issue 2, February 2021, Pages 82-85.
Bottom Image: “Eddy” by Erik Demaine & Martin Demaine, 2012. Mi-Teintes watercolor paper,
10" × 9" × 12"
Quote: excerpted from Jonah Lehrer article The Future of Science is Art? SeedMagazine.com, 2008

Help us bring our free programs at the intersection of art and sciences to audiences in Greater Boston and beyond! As a volunteer-led organization, we rely on the generosity of our attendees to continue to produce exciting and illuminating events. Please consider making a donation to support our programming.