Construction of complicated polyhedra from simple ones, III
No. 78, 1972
(Topology)
India ink and color pencil on paper, 31x42.5 cm.
From a small collection of components—some blocks, pyramids, and cubes—an entire city grows, mushrooming out to fill a great space. Light pokes through the darkness, creatures move about, and city life takes hold in the multifarious towering dwellings, which dwarf human beings with their fantastic massive structures. That such complexity can grow out of so many simple elements is the underlying theme here. Mathematically, a nontrivial idea inherent in this scene is the fact that a simple process underlies the visible complexity. Although all of the local gluing operations are linear, the results are essentially nonlinear.
