Mathematics & Design
There are so many things in our lives today that involve math and design that I couldn’t decide what to write. As I was running for the first time since school started, I looked down and saw a great example of math and design. My Adidas running shoes had some kind of new heel cushioning system that consisted of arches that work in a spring like manner.
Ever since Nike came out with Shox, all shoe companies have came out with some kind of advanced cushioning system. I always wonder if they actually work or not, but they seem to be ok considering that I haven’t had any foot problems.
These shoe companies use mathematic calculations and shapes to deliver the best support for the runner or the athlete. The mathematics determines which shapes best suits its purpose, whether running or walking. As you can see in Nike’s Shoxs, the walking shoes have smaller Shox on them and the running shoes have bigger Shox because running requires more cushioning to take in the strike force of every stride.
Today there are even shoes that can calculate. Such shoe will calculate the difference in strike force of each step and automatically adjust its cushioning to whatever environment you are in, like the Adidas_1 which has a micro processor that can do up to 5 million calculations per second.
When you look around, almost everything requires design and what ever requires design in many cases require some sort of math, whether it be clothing design dealing with transforming 2D into 3D forms, the aerodynamic shapes of cars and planes, or the design of buildings.
I always wonder how different our world would have been if our Mathematics were based on a different basis or if Archimedes’s notebooks, filled with mathematics that we are far far away from achieving, were never destroyed.