How can you make good flat maps of the round earth?’ Our story begins with Mercator’s world map of 1569, the first angle-preserving (or ‘conformal’) world map. His idea fell on fruitful soil, from which a new branch of mathematics has developed. The movie shows some of the highlights of this development, yielding a series of elegant visual forms which arise as ‘conformal maps’ on a variety of surfaces in 2- and 3-D. Featuring non-technical language, a simple aesthetic, compelling animation, and an original score, the movie builds an accessible bridge from everyday experience to a beautiful but little-known mathematical theory that continues to bear technological fruit today in fields such as computer graphics and architecture.

More information on the film can be found at conformmovie.de.

If you would like to show the film in a larger space and need a higher resolution copy (1080p) of the video, please contact Charles Gunn here. Also if you would like to show the film in German, French, Italian, or Russian.