Tangency: its many guises and varied applications --------------------------------------------------------------
It all began with the notion of a line tangent to a circle, of circles tangent to a line, like the successive positions of a bicycle wheel rolling along a straight track, or of circles tangent to one another. In everyday language, these mathematical objects "brush against each other". The concept was extended first to packings of tangent circles fitted inside a closed curve, like those the artist Jos Leys uses to fill his images, and then to tangent curves, which can be compared to the folds of "draped fabric".
Spheres tangent to a plane are marbles rolling across the floor; a cone tangent to a sphere is a crisp waffle cone topped with a scoop of ice cream; spheres tangent to one another are soap bubbles that burst when they collide…
Tangencies are everywhere! This universal notion is what special issue 84 of Tangente, published to mark the magazine's thirty-fifth anniversary, sets out to celebrate.
Élisabeth Busser Issue coordinator alongside Robert Ferreol