The ancient Pythagorean school believed that “all is number”. But how can that be? How can numbers describe something like a painting, or a dance?
By examining how computer graphic artists create virtual worlds, we can see how numbers are used to describe everything from objects, lights, colors,and movement.
Topics covered include Cartesian space, creating models with polygons, relative movement and vectors, graphing, additive and subtractive color theory, digital lighting and angles, and dynamic simulation of physics.
 
The Story of Quantus
The inspiration for creating Quantus came in 1997 while Beau Janzen was working as a digital visual effects artist in Los Angeles. His career had deviated away from his roots in educational media design, and he wanted to return to this passion. Janzen realized that he could use the effects work he was creating for feature films as a great hook to bring some concepts in math to skeptical students.
Going through the phone book, he began to call high schools and offered to be a guest lecturer to any math class that would have him.
With his reel of computer animation in hand, Janzen commiserated with the students that when he was in school, he struggled with math. As a student, he was able to go through the motions, but never saw a purpose for what he was doing. As he pursued his career in art and eventually landed in computer animation, he told the classes how he was able to finally use all of the math he had learned as a creative tool.
Janzen showed the classes clips from his work and explained how at the heart of it all were the ideas they were studying: Cartesian coordinates, angles, ratios, graphs, and so on.
In 2008, Janzen was contacted by his friend and colleague Konrad Pothier who was organizing a film festival as part of Germany’s National Year of Mathematics. Janzen eagerly accepted the invitation to submit a short film for the festival and thought about what topic he wanted to cover. Immediately, the idea of the lectures he had given so many years ago came to him, and he decided to base a short film on them. With less than a month production time, Quantus was created and accepted into the festival.
Janzen attended the opening of the MathFilm Festival 2008 in Berlin. While he was there, Polthier was able to arrange
several visits with schools in Berlin where Janzen was able to give his lecture again, but this time in German. At the festival, Quantus was awarded “Best Educational Piece”.
Later that year, Janzen and Polthier were invited to represent the city of Berlin at “Pi Mal Deutschland”, the closing gala for the Year of Mathmatics. At the Expo XXI Center in Cologne, Janzen once again gave his lecture to an audience of academics, students, and political leaders.
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