Iftikhar Husain

“Spiral Squares”

Digital print, 8" x 8", 2008.



The art works, "Spiral Square", was originally created on a TI-84 Plus graphing calculator. The design was uniquely created by using two equations only of linear function with restricted domain. These two equations have different parameters of the equation of each line segment, such as slope, y-intercept, domain x-left value, and domain x-right value, organized in a table. Each line segment is drawn by picking up its respected parameter value from the table. Once all the values from the table are exhausted the complete spiral square will appear on the calculator screen. The Art work is simple but truly illustrates the mathematical concepts. A single Spiral Square was then created on a computer using Geometer Sketchpad software. The Art Work, shown here, is the simple translation effect of the single spiral square horizontally and vertically thrice.


Iftikhar Husain, Mathematics Teacher and Tech-Coordinator, University High School, 55 Clinton Place, Newark, NJ 07108, USA
Newark Public Schools, Newark, New Jersey.
Union Township, New Jersey.

"Once I was trying to teach a group of reluctant learners how to write the equation of a line parallel to a given line that passed through a given point. It became practically impossible for me to answer the question, asked by one of the students; where would that equation be used in real life? The question did not bother me but what was disturbing was how to help the student not to look for the specific purpose for everything he or she is being taught. Otherwise its application will slow down the student in the learning process or the student may give up all together. It is known that one learns faster and knowledge is retained longer if it makes sense or if it has some purpose. Mathematical Art work gave me the opportunity to answer the question and encouraged me to develop mathematical designs for most of the mathematical functions and relations of which an equation can be written. Over 500 such designs have been created using Linear, Quadratic, Cubic, Trigonometric functions, Conic relations, and their combinations."


husains4ever@aol.com