Understanding the Universe

Margaret Wertheim is the director and co-founder of the Institute for Figuring, and USC Libraries' 2011-2012 Discovery Fellow. As the Discovery Fellow, Wertheim oversaw the construction of the Mosely Snowflake Sponge, a fractal constructed from over 50,000 business cards. She is a science writer, artist, historian of science, and exhibition curator. Her books include Pythagoras' Trousers, a history of the relationship between physics and religion in Western culture, and The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet. She has written for the LA Weekly, Los Angeles Times, and New York Times. The Institute for Figuring explores the poetic and aesthetic aspects of science. A recent major project is the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, which was exhibited in fall 2010 at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.