Permutations and Sona Drawings

Item

Title

Permutations and Sona Drawings

Description

The Chokwe people of central and southern Africa create designs in sand called sona drawings. In a typical mathematical manner, we ask whether these drawings can be created without lifting a finger from the sand. However, there are several patterns employed in sona drawings, adding more facets to our question. In this presentation, we will break down sona drawings into basic patterns within their rows and columns, answer our question using a function that exchanges numbers within a set, as well as techniques from both abstract algebra and number theory, and use mathematics to provide a greater appreciation for the sand drawings.

Karen Stanish

Contributor

Keene State College

Creator

Katherine R. Marinoff

Date

2017-10-11

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12088/8088

Subject

Mathematics

Type

Presentation

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Item sets

AEC 2017 School of Sciences and Social Sciences

Site pages

School of Sciences and Social Sciences