Helaman Rolfe Pratt Ferguson (born 1940 in

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

, Utah) is an American

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

and a

digital artist Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960s, various names ...

, specifically an algorist. He is also well known for his development of the PSLQ algorithm, an integer relation detection algorithm.

Early life and education

Ferguson's mother died when he was about three and his father went off to serve in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. He was adopted by an Irish immigrant and raised in New York. He learned to work with his hands in an old-world style with earthen materials from his adoptive father who was a carpenter and stonemason by trade. An art-inclined math teacher in high school helped him develop his dual interests in math and art. Ferguson is a graduate of

Hamilton College Hamilton College is a private liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York. It was founded as Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and was chartered as Hamilton College in 1812 in honor of inaugural trustee Alexander Hamilton, following ...

, a liberal arts school in New York. In 1971, he received a Ph.D. in mathematics from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...

Work

In 1977, Ferguson and another mathematician, Rodney Forcade, developed an algorithm for integer relation detection. It was the first viable generalization of the Euclidean algorithm for three or more variables. He later developed a more notable integer relation detection algorithm - the PSLQ algorithm - which was selected as one of the "Top Ten Algorithms of the Century" by

Jack Dongarra Jack Joseph Dongarra (born July 18, 1950) is an American computer scientist and mathematician. He is the American University Distinguished Professor of Computer Science in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the Unive ...

and Francis Sullivan. In January 2014, Ferguson and his wife Claire Ferguson delivered an MAA Invited Address, titled "Mathematics in Stone and Bronze," at the Joint Math Meetings in Baltimore Maryland. He is an active artist, often representing mathematical shapes in his works. One of the first bronze torii sculpted by Ferguson was exhibited at a computer art exhibition in 1989 at the Computer Museum in Boston. His most widely known piece of art is a 69 cm (27") bronze sculpture, '' Umbilic Torus''. In 2010, the

Simons Foundation The Simons Foundation is a private foundation established in 1994 by Marilyn and Jim Simons with offices in New York City. As one of the largest charitable organizations in the US with assets of over $5 billion in 2022, the foundation's mission ...

, a private institution committed to the advancement of science and mathematics, commissioned him to create the ''Umbilic Torus SC'', a massive 8.5 m (28½') high sculpture in cast bronze and granite weighing more than nine tons. With its installation completed in 2012, the torus sculpture was donated to

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system' ...

in Long Island, N.Y., and sits outside the Math and Physics buildings of the same university, near the

Simons Center for Geometry and Physics The Simons Center for Geometry and Physics is a center for theoretical physics and mathematics at Stony Brook University in New York. The focus of the center is mathematical physics and the interface of geometry and physics. It was founded in 20 ...

. Mounted on a stainless steel column, the torus sits on a 7.7 m (25¼') diameter granite base, where various mathematical formulas defining the torus are inscribed. To create the huge sculpture, Ferguson wrote a program consisting of 25,000 movements to control a 4.9 m (16') x 6.1 m (20') robot arm and its affixed 30 cm (12") long industrial diamond-encrusted cutting tool.

References

External links

Home page

Celebrating Mathematics in Stone and Bronze
by Helaman and Claire Ferguson, Notices of the AMS 57:7, July 2010. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ferguson, Helaman 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American digital artists Latter Day Saints from New York (state) Hamilton College (New York) alumni University of Washington alumni Living people American adoptees 1940 births 20th-century American sculptors American male sculptors Mathematical artists Brigham Young University faculty Latter Day Saints from Washington (state) Latter Day Saints from Utah Mathematicians from New York (state)

Early life and education

Work

See also

References

External links