Recent Writings

The blog to accompany hanusa.xyz.

 

Reimagining hanusa.xyz

misc
meta

I’ve renewed my website for 2026, including a refreshed feel and an integrated blog. How did it happen and what can you expect from the update?

Sep 15, 2026
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
Hyperbolic Emergence: a laser-cut wooden box with a circular window revealing layers of wood and yellow acrylic cut into a hyperbolic pattern

Bridges 2024

art

Hyperbolic Emergence in the Bridges 2024 art exhibition, a talk on Fractal Emergence, and Apollonian jewelry on the fashion show runway.

Jul 30, 2024
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
Title slide reading Mathematical Art on the AxiDraw Pen Plotter, Christopher Hanusa, Queens College of the City University of New York

A Talk on Mathematical Design

teaching
art

My talk on the Mathematical Design course in the math art minisymposium of the German Mathematical Society’s annual meeting.

Sep 25, 2023
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
A table covered with a dozen pieces of student artwork drawn by a pen plotter, including string-art curves, spirographs, a sailboat, and a pair of laser-cut glasses

Teaching Mathematical Design

teaching
art

A semester of Mathematical Design, where non-math majors learn functions in Desmos and turn them into art on AxiDraw pen plotters.

Jan 25, 2023
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

Teaching 3D Design and 3D Printing

teaching
Mathematica

An article on teaching 3D design and 3D printing in the classroom, with a case study and an appendix of Mathematica design techniques.

Dec 16, 2022
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

Packing 16 Tetrahedra in Mathematica

math
Mathematica

Exploring the optimal packing of 16 tetrahedra, and cleaning up the model in Mathematica to reveal its interior structure.

Oct 5, 2022
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
Riemondrian: a Mondrian-style grid of red, yellow, blue, and white rectangles, with a wavy curve whose Riemann sum rectangles form the grid

Riemondrian and Calculus Art

art

A look back at Riemondrian, a mashup of Riemann sums and Mondrian, and the student work, jewelry, and prints it has inspired.

Jun 11, 2022
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
A 3D-printed Window Evolution sculpture: a stack of pentagonal slices shading from yellow to magenta, with windows cut through them

Existence and Uniqueness: A Solo Show

art

My solo show at Gallery 1064, featuring three collections of 3D-printed sculptures: Riemannscapes, Window Evolution, and Streamlines.

Mar 5, 2022
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
A 3D-printed sculpture of orange and blue curved strands that sweep along the streamlines of a vector field, forming a lens shape

Streamlines Sculptures at JMM 2022

art

My 3D-printed Streamlines sculptures, which trace the paths of particles through vector fields, at the JMM 2022 art exhibition.

Dec 11, 2021
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
A purple Desmos graph of a row of looping heart shapes wrapped around into a circular ring

From Parametric to Polar in Desmos

math

How to wrap a parametric curve around a circle in Desmos, by shifting it up and applying a polar transformation.

Jul 6, 2021
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

Creating a Mathematical Design Course

teaching
art

Planning a Mathematical Design course for non-majors, with Desmos projects, tutorial videos, and an AxiDraw pen plotter.

Sep 16, 2020
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
String diagram of 24135 stacked on top of 54321, showing the product 54321 × 24135 = 42531

Multiplying Permutations with String Diagrams

math

A discussion of how to visually multiply permutations using string diagrams.

May 10, 2020
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
A pair of white 3D-printed Apollonian circle packing earrings above a curved triangular Apollonian necklace on a silver chain

An Apollonian Necklace

art

The favorite Apollonian earring designs from the Twitter polls, plus a matching Apollonian necklace.

May 2, 2020
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
Six 3D-printed white Apollonian circle packing pendants on a purple background, three with an outer circle and three without

Designing Apollonian Earrings

art

Coding Apollonian circle packings into 3D-printed earrings, and asking Twitter to vote on the final design.

May 1, 2020
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

More Interesting Math Jewelry

art

A reply to Annie Perkins’s golden spiral math art challenge, and a first hint of the Apollonian jewelry to come.

Apr 10, 2020
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

Juggling and Kostant’s Partition Function

math

Counting juggling sequences turns out to be the same as counting the ways to break a weight of a Lie algebra into positive roots.

Jan 13, 2020
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

Peer Praise

teaching

Asking students to praise two favorite projects by their classmates, and why forwarding that praise is a win for everyone.

Dec 20, 2019
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

2019 Wolfram Innovator Award

Mathematica

Receiving a 2019 Wolfram Innovator Award for using Mathematica in teaching, 3D design and jewelry, and mathematical art.

Oct 31, 2019
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

The Hot Seat

teaching
Mathematica

An idea for a five-minute programming challenge at the front of class, and a question about how to make it welcoming rather than intimidating.

Aug 21, 2019
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
Numbered colored circles placed around a dotted square, joined by line segments that show the path of an alternating billiard ball

Alternating Billiards

math

A new version of billiards where the ball bounces by alternating between two fixed directions, from my research on placements of chess pieces.

Jan 8, 2019
Christopher R. H. Hanusa

3D Design in Mathematica: Generative Jewelry

art
Mathematica

Happy July everyone. This month I’ll share a bit of Mathematica code that has helped me to add some ordered randomness to my art and jewelry. And…

Jul 1, 2017
Christopher R. H. Hanusa

3D Design in Mathematica: Custom Dice

art
Mathematica

Today we continue our series in 3D Design in Mathematica. I’ll teach you how to use the RegionPlot3D command to create custom dice. Let’s first start…

Jun 1, 2017
Christopher R. H. Hanusa

3D Design in Mathematica: Costa Rica Keychain

art
Mathematica

Hi everyone Welcome back to another 3D Design in Mathematica Tutorial. Last time I showed how to create a polyhedral terrarium . Today I will use…

May 1, 2017
Christopher R. H. Hanusa

3D Design in Mathematica: Polyhedral Terrarium

art
Mathematica

Today I continue my series of Mathematica Tutorials for 3D printing. Last time I showed how to create a custom-designed name ring . In this post I…

Apr 3, 2017
Christopher R. H. Hanusa

3D Design in Mathematica: Creating a Name Ring

art
Mathematica

In this post I will be going through the techniques I use to create a name ring in Mathematica. Here is a ring I designed that is an ambigram of the…

Mar 1, 2017
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

New TYPES of puzzles

teaching

We’re over halfway done with the semester and my Games and Puzzles class has been fascinating and rewarding in many…

Apr 6, 2016
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

Announcing the Circular Teaching Squad

teaching

Abstract: I discuss the rationale for changing the name of our lunch discussion group. Join us March…

Feb 24, 2016
Christopher R. H. Hanusa

Student Forays into Pencil Puzzles

teaching

Abstract: In the first six days of my pencil puzzles class, my students have had to think deeply about solving and creating Battleships puzzles. This…

Feb 23, 2016
Christopher R. H. Hanusa

Teaching Pencil Puzzles

teaching

This semester I am teaching Math 555: Games and Puzzles for the first time. The class does not serve as a prerequisite for any other class and it…

Feb 22, 2016
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

Creative Writing is Experiential Learning!

teaching

Abstract: Creative writing gives students a chance to experience a topic in a new way and lets students try on an alternate persona. Also, I muse…

Nov 2, 2015
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

Experiential Learning Lunch on 21 Oct 2015

teaching

Abstract: We highlight a few of the innovative teaching techniques that were presented in October’s Experiential Learning…

Oct 26, 2015
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

The Experiential Learning Group at Queens College

teaching

Abstract: This post is a quick introduction to our college’s experiential learning group. What is experiential learning? What happens in a group…

Oct 21, 2015
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

Announcing The MathZorro Podcast

teaching

Abstract: In Fall 2014, I recorded podcasts with my Combinatorics students and they are now ready for consumption. You can read descriptions of the…

Jul 16, 2015
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

Teaching students Mathematica

teaching
Mathematica

Abstract: Mathematica has amazing capabilities, and my students have started to harness its power to investigate and create…

Apr 2, 2015
Christopher R. H. Hanusa

Permutations corresponding to sequences of reflections.

math

In a recent Google+ post , I shared an animation that sliced a tetrahedron along the six planes of symmetry and casually mentioned that the 24…

Oct 30, 2013
Christopher R. H. Hanusa

Simultaneous core partitions

math

In this post I hope to share insights into an article that Brant Jones , +Drew Armstrong , and I wrote up this year and submitted for publication at…

Aug 27, 2013
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
 

Why blog about mathematics?

math
misc

An important part of being a researcher is conveying what you learn to others. The way mathematicians convey their results to colleagues is to write…

Aug 9, 2013
Christopher R. H. Hanusa
No matching items