The Eightfold Way
齊國新教授Washington University, St. Louis 下午 3:00–4:00 Hongjing Hall 107 室Buddha teaches one to transcend the human sufferings and future states of rebirth to reach nirvana by practicing the eightfold way. In this talk, I will look at The Eightfold Way, the sculpture by Helaman Ferguson standing in front of MSRI, which is the artist's Euclidean rendition of the celebrated Klein quartic curve of genus 3, that achieves the maximum symmetry of automorphisms (168 in number) on a surface of genus 3. I hope at the end of the talk folks can be convinced why to us mathematicians, we can reach the ultimate enlightenment when we, as we mimic monks' chant "Nan Woo, Nan Woo, ...", complete the eightfold turn of the dharma wheel.