R=4r

This is the fabric hanging on one of the walls in my apartment.

I'm aware it might look a little crazy taken out of the context of the rest of my apartment, but I like to think it goes well with the rest of the interior decorating.

But anyway, to the point of my story ...

Remember the friends with whom my boyfriend and I went camping at the Grand Canyon? While they were here, they stayed with us. Stayed, in fact, in very close proximity to this wall hanging.

While they were here, it somehow came up that my friend's husband, who is a geologist, had been going nuts staring at this thing. Why?

Because it irked him that the black circles do not continue in straight lines, but instead curve in toward the center.

When he brought this up, my boyfriend quickly chimed in, "I know! It's been driving me crazy for months, too!" And then the two of them frenetically began discussing the geometrical shapes' finer points. "I know, and you see how that line should be here..." "And the radius there..." "I'd say it's a parabola..." "Yeah, that's what it is..."

Meanwhile, my friend and I are looking at each other like, "Aren't boys such special creatures?"

Especially ones who are obsessed with math.


My friend and her husband eventually had to return home. A week or two went by. And then, one day, I walked into that same room and my boyfriend had taped this next to the fabric.

Me: "Um, what is this?"

Boyfriend: "Oh. I had to find the radius of the big red circle."

Me: "You what?" Pause. "Why?"

Boyfriend: [Jumps off the couch, runs over and points at his calculations.] "Look! Can you believe that the radius of this big circle is four times the radius of the little black circle? This is great. I figured it out. Man, that was gonna bother me."

Talk about a piece of home decor that's a conversation-starter ...

Photos: Sway Sovay