Numbers to Score By at a School's Athletic Center

November 12, 2008

In Hebron, Maine, at Hebron Academy's new athletics center, one of the outside walls features the following arrangement of panels: three white panels, then one yellow panel, four gray, one white, five yellow, and so on. Another wall has two panels of one color, followed by seven of a different color, then one panel of a third color, eight panels of another color, and so on.

The arrangements are mathematical. One wall depicts consecutive digits of pi and the other digits of Euler's number, e. Moreover, many of the facility's windows have heights that are Fibonacci numbers, ranging from 1 foot to 8 feet tall.

The people behind these physical displays of pi, e, and Fibonacci numbers are architect Paul Lewandowski of SMRT, in Portland, Maine, who describes himself as a "math geek," and athletic director Leslie Guenther, who also teaches math at the academy.

"It seemed kind of fitting," Lewandowski told the Lewiston (Maine) Sun Journal, about the mathematical designs. "And all of that got wrapped up in creating this dynamic space for athletics so it would seem energetic."

And there's more. The tower at the center's entrance includes the golden ratio and Fibonacci numbers in its design.

The $11 million, 54,000-square-foot center, which was dedicated in October, will open to self-styled math geeks, athletes, and just plain students by the end of the term.

Source: Lewiston (Maine) Sun Journal, Nov. 3, 2008.