They've got some fantastic images produced by a harmonograph in the Science Museum's mathematics section. They're a bit like spirograph patterns, but they're produced using a set of pendulums. A harmonograph looks easy enough to make.
The harmonograph is to me a very 'whole brain' device, using physics to produce extraordinary geometric shapes which describe the very heart of growth patterns in nature, and which can then be mathematically described.
There are lots of interesting harmonograph images on the internet, including this one:
This harmonograph pattern was photographed by Conor Lawless and originally appears in his Flickr photostream
The maths section also has a set of John Napier's bones, which are just one of his contributions to the simplification of maths. The 'bones' are an abacus-style set of multiplication tables, which massively simplify the multiplication and division of large numbers.
We all love the Science Museum!
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