The Vapourer (Orgyia antiqua) in my garden. Not rare in the UK, but a stunning caterpillar.

The girls have done well today! Or in the language of Richard Scarry "Big, bigger, biggest".

My paper representation of a chemical structure. Each loop represents a silicon atom in strontium disilicide. The structure is a 10^3-a network (AF Wells) but known as the srs-structure (if you're a MOF person). Most interestingly it has a chiral cubic symmetry. 🧪 🐡 #MathArt #ChemSky

Made a start. It should grow out to give a chiral cubic 3-connected network made up of 10-gons. #MathArt #SciArt

Been thinking about this structure for a while. Building blocks cut and ready!

5/5 (at last) 120-Deltahedron A. That's 60 blue and 60 yellow equilateral triangles that break the reflection symmetries of this Mobius deltahedron. Just the many 5-fold, 3-fold and 2-fold axis remaining. 🧪 🐡 #Symmetry #MathArt

Set complete.

A work in progress. If I don't finish it tonight, it'll be another week!

4/5 120-Deltahedron B. Icosahedral symmetry and 120 faces. The three corners of each triangle sit on a 5-fold, a 3-fold and a 2-fold rotation axis. Next year, I'll be involved in teaching a symmetry course at Glasgow. I'm quite excited by the prospect. Can you tell? 🧪 🐡 #Symmetry #MathArt

3/5 This third one in the series is 48-Deltahedron B. Octahedral symmetry again, and an isomer of the previous post (2/5). As far as I'm concerned, that's the last relatively simple one! 🧪 #SciArt #Symmetry #MathArt

2/5 is 48-Deltahedron A. The second Mobius deltahedron with 48 faces. Octahedral symmetry, meaning each triangle has a corner on a 2-fold, a 3-fold and a 4-fold rotation axis. Again going for two-tone. 🧪 #Symmetry #MathArt #SciArt

1/5 This is 24-Deltahedron A, a 24-sided non-convex polyhedron, made of equatorial triangles. It is face-transitive and has tetrahedral symmetry. The corners of the triangles lie on 2-fold and 3-fold rotation axis. It is the first so-called Mobius deltahedron. 🧪 #Symmetry #MathArt #SciArt

A paper model representing the fullerene C70, colloquially known as Rugbyballene. 🧪 #ChemSky #ITeachChem #SciArt

Still making paper models of fullerenes. These represent the 7 IPR isomers of C80. 🧪 #ChemSky #SciArt

Charles Janet's version of the periodic table is often lost in the history of science. I for one, prefer it. #ChemSky 🧪

Evening light on the Gare Loch. #Scotland #Highlands #Landscape

Not posted for a while. Not made much for a while. Too busy with the day job...dotting the i's and crossing the t's on the academic results from Year-3 Chemistry. Just a couple more board meetings until that part of the process is complete. Image: a two-tone weaving of C80...just because.

Daylight version of Creachan Mor, viewed across Loch Long #Scotland

Creachan Mor (657m) from Airlig (198m) late this evening.

To be fair I should have shown what it's like to weave folded paper.

11:30 pm in Argyll (#Scotland) looking north, and we're still a month away from the longest day. Many newts, toads and frogs ( and roe dear) this evening.

The weave, added creases, blue lines for bonds, and it's a model of C60 fullerene. Potential #SciCom 🧪 #SciArt

Eldest son had the brilliant idea that we should hatch ducks! We're at 6 weeks with these Silver Appleyard. #NewFeatheredFriends

The two disconnected void spaces, separated by the card, are identical and interpenetrating. Each has the shape of the framework of carbon atoms in the structure of diamond. 🧪 #ChemSky #PaperCraft #SciArt

Dramatic skies today on our ascent of Beinn a' Mhanaich, quite foreboding across to Loch Goil. #Scotland #StormHour

A bit tatty now, but for 11 year old me, best present ever.

Duck update: What are we feeding them? Hatched 4 weeks ago!

Still on a fullerene adventure. Unflattened a network of regular hexagons and given the impression of electron density with contours. It represents a molecule of (C80-Ih)[56]fullerene. #ITeachChem 🧪 #ChemSky #SciArt

Loving this! Woven from 6 strands, each made from 10 hexagons, this ball shows the most symmetric C80 fullerene isomer. But I see it as a kagome lattice on a sphere, so I am wondering . . . is it tripartite? I need to make a 3 colour version. 🧪

One short! It seems that this stack of 13 open ended truncated tetrahedra will divide the space bicontinuously. Two identical interpenetrating spaces that are separated from each other. 🧪 #geometry (with the same symmetry as diamond #Chemsky ) #SciArt