Thousands more business cards needed to build giant Sponge

Thousands more business cards needed to build giant Sponge

New Zealand is taking part in a global event this weekend to build a Menger Sponge using 15 million business cards but local organisers say they are thousands of business cards short.

The MegaMenger event is being held simultaneously in more than 20 locations including the United Kingdom, US, China and Spain. The Auckland event is sponsored by the University of Auckland’s Department of Mathematics and happens this coming weekend at Auckland Art Gallery.

The Menger Sponge illustrates an important mathematical theorem discovered in the 1920s by Karl Menger, a pioneering mathematician who contributed to game theory.

The Menger Sponge is a three-dimensional fractal with zero volume but infinite surface area. A fractal is a repeating pattern that can scale to any size. It can occur in nature or as part of a mathematical set.

As with other locations around the world, New Zealand will create 20 “Level 3” Menger Sponges – the final result will be approximately 1.5m cubed and weigh about 90kg.

Organisers already have about 30,000 business cards - but they need a lot more.

“At the moment we’re significantly short of what we think we’ll need, about 20,000 cards short,” says organiser Dr Nicolette Rattenbury from the University of Auckland’s Science Student Centre.

“Business cards are ideal for this project not only because people discard old ones and because we can get them for free but because they are the perfect size.”

The event takes place this weekend, 25 and 26 October, at Auckland Art Gallery’s North Atrium.

For more information go to: www.megamenger.com and www.aucklandartgallery.com/whats-on/events/2014/october/megamenger

ENDS

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