Two pictures from Gabala, Azerbaijan

I took a few pictures of bead models I brought to Azerbaijan.
The first one is a model of EMACs (extended metal atom chain) with 9 metal ions. This model was made by Qian-Rui Huang many years ago.

The second one is a model of zeolite which I gave to Prof. Yin-Xia Wang of Beijing Univeristy as a gift. She is an exert on zeolites.

A few pictures from the IChO 2015

(in Aliyev Cultural Center, Baku, Azerbaijan)

C60's bead models for the International Chemistry Olympiad 2015, Azerbaijan

I am a member of Taiwan Chemistry Olympiad team for the 2015 IChO (International Chemistry Olympiad) which will be held next week at Baku, Azerbaijan. We prepared many C60 bead models as souvenirs for participants from around the world. To make about 200 bead models of C60. we got help from chemistry teachers and many senior students of the Taipei First-Girl School (TFGH). Most of these students have just got acceptances from colleges and have some spare time to help us prepare these beautiful bead models.

However, it is fun to make one's own beaded C60, so Chia-Chin and I also prepared about 200 kits of materials and detailed instruction for making C60.

Workshop at Bar-Ilan University

Tel Aviv, Israel (以色列特拉維夫)，2014/11/18

Workshop at the Ito campus of Kyushu University

Workshop 16:40-19:00 for ca 150 first-year undergraduate students assisted by Yasushi Kita and Kumiko Okayama. Talk and workshop titled as "Molecular modeling of fullerenes with beads: a hands-on approach"

Workshop at the Fukuoka Gender Equality Promotion Center

Workshop with children and family members of NPO Community of the Culture with and for Children and some members of UPA Owl Association as well as Prof. Masahito Katayama at AMIKAS(Fukuoka Gender Equality Promotion Center) hosted by Takaaki Sonoda and Yumiko Takamiya and assisted by Yasushi Kita and Kumiko Okayama.

Talk with the title: "Chemistry, geometry, and art: constructing fullerenes with beads".

The materials and bead models I brought to Japan:

Workshops in Japan

I am going to Japan to give a few workshops this Saturday. The tentative schedule for this trip:

June 2-5: Fukuoka University 
June 6: Okayama University
June 7: Shiga University, Hikone
June 8-11: Nagoya

Poor little bear

I found in my iphoto library a few photos I took four years ago in St. Petersburg. I was one of four coaches of Taiwan team for the International Chemistry Olympiad(IChO), held in the Moscow State University. Our students got two gold medals and two silver medals after about 10 days of hard work in Moscow. We then went to St. Petersburg for another 3 days. St. Petersburg is a beautiful city. I wish I can visit it again someday.

Possibly nearby the winter palace square, I took these pictures of two ladies abusing a poor little bear.

The poor little bear was thrown into the sea (or harbor)!

Somewhere in St. Petersburg, I found accidentally a statue of the great Russian chemist, Mendeleev, and a huge periodic table on the wall of an adjacent house.

Bridges 2011

I gave a talk this morning on the designing sculpture inspired by high-genus fullerenes with mathematical beading (pdf file) in the Bridges conference (Coimbra, Portugal).



Here are some bead models I brought to this meeting. These include three large pieces (a dodecahedra, a tetrahedron, and a trefoil knot), four TCNTs (120, 140, 240), and around 25 C60s.

A few photos from the Bridges Pecs 2010

I gave a short talk today at Bridges 2010. Here are a few photos taken by Robert.

M.C Escher's "going up the stairs"

I visited the National Museum of Modern Art (Reina Sofía Museum) at Madrid yesterday. My old friend Alberto showed me this interesting stair. Very similar to Escher's work, isn't it?

Of course, there are many paintings by Picassa, Dali, Miro, ... in this museum.

Helically-coiled tube in 劍湖山

I found these two interesting helically coiled macrotubes in 劍湖山 yesterday.

Funny "No ..." Signs outside the Catherine Palace Museum

Krelim's giant cannon

How far can a cannonball of this size go?

St. Basil's cathedral

The beautiful St. Basil's cathedral in red square, Moscow.
(taken by Bih-Yaw Jin during the 2007 International Chemistry Olympiad, Moscow)

Public arts （公共藝術） for new chemistry building

According to the regulation of the Taiwan's goverment, in oder to promote the appreciation of art by our people, any new building must have the public art (公共藝術) put on exhibition in the public space around or in the building .

I have suggested to Chuang and a number of faculty members (Profs. J.-T. Chen and S.-F Cheng) of my department last month (June, 2007) about the possibility of using our invention of molecular beading as a public art for our new chemistry building. Except Chuang, other people thought that I was kidding. But in fact I was very serious. I have two proposals originally. Firstly, I plan to create three large beaded fullerenes including an icosahedral molecule such as C60, a tetrahedron molecule, and a toroidal molecule (T120) using steel beads with radii about 10cm. The resulting structures can be 2 to 3 meters high. Then putting these giant beaded molecules outside our new chemistry building. Hopefully, close to the front door.

The other proposal is to create several small beaded molecules such as the Sierpinski's ball made by Chuang and his classmates of 2007. Put each of them on a wooden stand and enclose it in a glass box. Then, we can leave these artworks in many different places in the chemistry building such as corners of Jiu-Ru lobby and corridors of each floor.

Last week, when I was in the Moscow (or St. Petersburg) airport with Prof. Chien (簡敦誠教授 ) of NTNU, I told him about my idea of using beaded molecules as public arts for our new chemistry building. He immediately suggested another solution. Instead of making a huge beaded molecular artwork outside the building, he said it is better to hang these beaded molecules from the ceiling if the ceiling of the lobby in the new chemistry building is high enough. Indeed, in between these two buildings, there is a large open space with high ceiling we can take advantage of. In fact, as far as I know that will be the main lobby right after one enters the chemistry building. Imaging that when you step into the main lobby of chemistry building, the scene unfolded in front of your eyes is many giant, colorful beaded fullerenes with variety of shapes hanging from the high ceiling. What a wonderful view. I like this idea.

I think I should work out the detailed plans for all these ideas later this year.

By the way, I found this site of our government:
「公共藝術獎」徵選
and
公共藝術