May 28, 2004

Course at Case Western Reserve U. Examines the Intersection of Art and Math

By THOMAS BARTLETT

Like most new courses, this one was an experiment. And for the first few weeks, the class, which is taught jointly by a mathematician and an art historian, wasn't going so well. "We speak different languages," says Henry Adams, a professor of art history at Case Western Reserve University. "I wondered at a certain point whether this was going to work."

In time, though, things "started to fall together," he says.

Mr. Adams wanted to create a class that examined the intersection