How Math Can Help Decode Art

[@SciShow]

Head to linode.com/scishow to get a $100 60-day credit on a new Linode account. Linode offers simple, affordable, and accessible Linux cloud solutions and services.

[@beepboop204]

[@MariaMartinez-researcher]

4:27. Summa Theologica is not just a "14th century religious text." For starters, it was published in 1485, so it is a *15th century* work. It is one of the biggest, most important, *first systematic* compilation of (theological) knowledge in the history of knowledge. Yep, for non-Christian (Catholic, specifically) or non-religious people the magnum opus of St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, may seem unimportant, but the history of culture includes all manifestations of culture, and that includes religion; Christianity is, for better and for worse, a defining element of Western civilization and culture. Most of the video is about a religious painting. Without basic theological knowledge, you won't be able to recognize the characters in it nor understand what the painting *means.* Also, theological librarian here. Summa Theologica is a fundamental part in the education of modern Catholic priests, and very important for other churches too. It's an *encyclopedia,* written centuries before the Encyclopédie. Please check the Wikipedia article for more details.

[@joyta1518]

​@@beepboop204 😅😊😅😅😊😊😅i😅😅ì😅😅ìi😅😊😅😊😅😊i😊i😅i😅ì😅😅ì😊7😅😅😊😊😅😅😅😊😅😊😮😅😅😅😮😮😮😅😅😮😅😅😅😅😅😮😅😅😮😮😅😮

[@acoupleofschoes]

I had a professor in college who had done research in this area. When Van Gogh was painting, he bought rolls of canvas, then cut out each size he needed. X-ray imaging can take a photo of the canvas' weave structure underneath the paint. Our final project was to use those x-ray scans to try and organize some Van Gogh paintings in the correct sequential order and orientation the canvas came off the roll.

[@jschouten1985]

That's actually a different area....that has to do with science instead of math

[@acoupleofschoes]

@@jschouten1985 It was an Image Processing class. We were using convolutional filters.

[@jenniferr3144]

That is amazing.

[@jameshill2450]

@@jschouten1985 The most famous thing about science is how it doesn't ever involve numbers.

[@michaelmicek]

As someone who taught himself some image processing circa 1990 to help petroleum engineers, and also took a course in metric topology, convolution is so simple it hardly feels like math.

[@catherinebaldwin6580]

“Wait? Art is Math?” “Always have been.” Joking aside, as an online artist and applied math major, I love the combination of art and math in my field. This art recognition program sound like something I would like to do for a thesis.

[@spindash64]

And if we count in Music, then it’s even Mathier. And also linguistier.

[@Hecarim420]

Language is also mathematical 👀ツ ==> Like the rest of Universe ¯\_(👀)_/¯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@whiteshadow7584]

I wish I did something related to image processing for my undergraduate thesis in Mathematics. Unfortunately, there were very few professors in our Maths department who did applied math (the institution itself was more focused in pure maths so most faculty members specialized in those) and I resigned to getting the creepy professor as an advisor and doing a topic I didn't much care for. It's one of those things I regret doing but I had to.

[@Halal_Sahibi]

I guess math is the law of earth

[@hannahhaugen1694]

What a lovely introduction to convolution! And art history too! One of my favorite Scishow episodes I’ve watched in a long time.

[@wonder_platypus8337]

Same. Felt like it went into a lot more depth into the subject.

[@sdwvit]

same here, its so good

[@LectrifiedGypso]

At first I thought this video was going to be about the geometry used in art. Instead I got to learn about technology that I had no idea about. Thanks for the interesting information!

[@LukeVilent]

Yeah, convolutuonal neutal networks, the backbone of the image processing - now being replaced and merged with transformer networks. My bread and butter.

[@Aabil11]

We love you, Hank... praying for your speedy recovery

[@Birddop]

Always new topics to learn about 🥰 thank you guys so much

[@CuriosityRocks]

Would love more videos about the science and psychology of art please

[@matthewsemenuk8953]

You got this Hank! We believe in you! ❤

[@SamHunley]

I just wanted to say that I appreciate that y'all avoided throwing around hot buzzwords. It would have been easy to play up the machine learning/AI aspect of these tools, but instead, y'all focused on the mathematics. I'm not sure if I'm making complete sense (I blame a head cold), but in short, y'all could have tried to go viral, but instead, y'all focused on quality. And I think that's awesome.

[@treehouse318]

totally.🧠😎📚

[@krisgardner7160]

This video and the fact that I’m a CS/ Comp Engr major really makes me want a SciSchow Computer Science channel/series

[@willd4686]

If you want a fun programming challenge write code to do edge detections and blurs. No libraries though! You need to implement the matrix multiplications yourself!

[@ZweiZombies]

Amazing video! Really cool that you go into some detail on the tools involved. Also going to plug that Maths is really just a form of art, once you master it to the point where various tools (read: axioms, theorems, definitions, entire subfields) just feel like different Lego blocks

[@_HMCB_]

Great channel. I’ve watched three of your videos today and love the depth of the research while not making it overbearing. You’ve earned a new subscriber. 👍🏽

[@rosebishop5755]

I think this is my favorite scishow video ever! So cool! love the marriage of math and art. Hadn't ever heard of that art work before by the two brothers. I'll have to look it up now. So sad and sweet he finished the painting for his brother. Also that they actually painted a page of a book on that massive artwork. Mystery solved.

[@SmittenKitten.]

Loved every second of this. Fascinating!

[@TazPessle]

@1:52. Plus the aging and differential contraction/degradation of different components over the years. Even stable ideal humidity can't stop general degradation of historic materials.

[@jameseddleman6944]

No no no no no, no no no no no, no no no no no. I did not hate math and only doodle in class just to have this be true.

[@llipses]

"Hey, you got math in my art!” “Hey, you got art in my math!”

[@grandvivant]

I feel this. I’m out of university now but my last year of high school I took a self taught online AP computer science course and nearly failed it because it had crappy lessons and I am a horrible self moderator. The project it all went south on was me trying to make convolution filters. It isn’t incredibly hard as it is mostly working with arrays of variables (think of the array as being the values of the pixels and then another being the kernel in the video example and a final array being the output values for the pixels of the image). I am pretty sure it went south because that was a lot of loops to keep track of in code and I was not understanding object oriented style of C++. But man this video gave me some ‘not paying attention in class’ flashbacks

[@SquintyGears]

Relax it's just about pattern recognition. Your doodles are safe

[@rwesenberg]

Didn't know math could be so ...creative, did yah?

[@wyndhamcoffman8961]

​@The European Bee here's the thing that most people don't understand. You are the describing arithmetic; (which, quite frankly, is so boring we invented machines to do it for us) while arithmetic is math, not all math is arithmetic. In a lot of cases, you have to get away from the numbers and picture it with something a little more intuitive. But basically math it self is more of a way to describe logical concepts in a way that is repeatable and easily manipulated.

[@digitalnation2876]

much love from Indonesia ❤

[@BakeBakePi]

Very interesting!

[@MikeyMxes]

But @hankgreen, can math show me what to get my mom for her birthday?

[@cpu088]

"as wide as a two-car garage door and almost twice as tall" - Americans will use anything but the metric system :D Love the show, btw, thx for sharing!

[@MrOiram46]

Well, that description is easier to visualize, more so for Americans because some American homes do have two-car garages. When it comes to smaller things though, I hate the fractions and prefer mm/cm

[@Mallory-Malkovich]

Maybe now a computer will finally be able to tell which paintings are Picasso's and which paintings are actually Elmir's. Some famous galleries are in for a surprise!

[@BlackRainRaven]

and now imagine this kind of tech gets refined, improved and integrated into the AIs doing art right now, or Chat GPT for that matter. If we figure out code to analyse and distinguish artists and their methods, the already scary AI and Deepfakes are just going to reach a new level, giving the artistic community even more headaches. Not sure if this kind of development is good or not but certainly entertaining to observe from an outsiders perspective.

[@elainebelzDetroit]

If you stand in front of the Old Guitarist at the AIC (kinda below, when I was there), you can see there's another image under it. Very cool. After spending a lot of time around Dominicans (Order of Preachers) in grad school, it's kinda nice to hear the Summa simply called "a 14th-century religious text."

[@michaelmicek]

😂

[@KittytheKatfish]

Could you tell your friends from PBS EONS to make another season of their podcast please?

[@treehouse318]

seriously cool episode, y'all. thank you!😎

[@BUG25985]

M.C. Escher has entered the chat

[@nosforati]

HELL YEAH

[@warrixsin]

This was a really nice video

[@ololh4xx]

this is also a great explanation about the inner mechanics of software which the media keeps calling "AI". Its a misnomer - neural nets like these ones have no connection to artifical intelligence. At all.

[@stephaniet1389]

There was a comment somewhere how back in the day, they didn't call it "A.I.", they called it statistics.

[@nemonomen3340]

I’ve heard this a few times now and it’s always a little more annoying the next time. Is it intelligent? Check. Is it artificial? Check. I’m calling it artificial intelligence. The boomers were wrong when they named it.

[@ololh4xx]

@@XOPOIIIO they are *vastly* different, you should read up on the topic - neural nets only simulate singular, apparent, abstract, simplified functions which are connected - neurons on the other hand are far from being simple, even apparently simple processes like signal exchange are highly complicated, unlike the trivial operations done by neural nets and their nodes. Just because the results of GPT are impressive and just because you *want* something to be true it doesnt have to be true ;-)

[@ololh4xx]

@@nemonomen3340 read up on the facts. NN has no "intelligence" at all. These are static collections of mathematical functions which approximate a desired result. You would've known that if you had understood this video

[@ololh4xx]

@@stephaniet1389 exactly - its basically fancy statistics - nothing more and nothing less. Impressive statistics - but statistics nonetheless

[@chelseascreatures]

the whole painting on top of another painting doesn't really surprise those of us who create paintings for a living and canvas is expensive.

[@shielatemplo8015]

The golden ratio is used in the most popular art like the Mona Lisa and starry night

[@michaelborror4399]

Thoth is the god of writing and wisdom, depicted as a babboon, or sacred ibis, or as a man with the head of an ibis, and the ghent alterpiece. While I was just reading about the falcon headed god of the moon, khonsu who's name means traveler, and the ram or rhino headed god of potters, khnum.

[@AuntyKsTarot]

Yes! My love of art and math justified!

[@davesatxify]

Wow. Just wow.

[@7Alberto7]

Amazing!!!!

[@y_fam_goeglyd]

Fascinating stuff! I did a bit of art history back in my uni days and have always found it fascinating. If any of a bunch of particularly excellent art historians do a new series, I'm going to record it to keep so I can rewatch it over and over. Thus I'm _very_ familiar with the Ghent Altar lol - it's one of the most incredibly detailed paintings throughout history, there is so much in it that you couldn't possibly see everything if you went there every day for a week and studied each panel intently. I'm not sure a month would cover it. I'd love to see what the neural network or whatever it's officially called could come up with for Mona Lisa. (No, I haven't even read that book or seen the film. I'd been a huge Leonardo fan for decades before that pulp-worthy trash was written. It did terrible things to poor Leo's reputation. Some people still think it's nonfiction! It doesn't help that the "History" Channel and its piers - those which once lived up to their titles - has done so much twaddle on the Knights Templar and insist on talking about Da Vinci as part of it. Though tbh, I stopped watching those dubbed as "new information about the secret organisation" which back then made it sound interesting, after the second or third one...) We know there are different versions of her hands and face, and there are some tiny marks which look like they might well be something definitive yet currently can only be honestly described as a paint mark. So much study has been done each time scientists and engineers come up with new scanning technology, but this would be worth a new mathematical study (unless they've already done it and not told us yet!)

[@starrywizdom]

Great job! Do one one Math & Music, please?

[@chrystal1062]

Math has never been independent from art. I took a class last semester that focused on optics and lighting, and that requires a lot of geometry, and also knowledge from science!

[@chrystal1062]

It’s interesting to see how there are different ways to use technology to better past artworks!

[@shakiMiki]

The very existence of Leonardo da Vinci settles that false choice.

[@wurzelgnom5760]

People who think that math has no creativity in it have no idea what math realy is. It is about connecting ideas and arranging arguments to prove stuff. Like these guys did, you need creativity to come up with this solution to that problem. Just calculating stuff is like colouring by numbers, you just doing whats left to do after someone else has been creativ. So many people fail in math because they don't realize that they should be creative in math.

[@AA-eq2zq]

Yeah it's really unfortunate that math is (generally) taught like that. This reminds me of an article I read recently by Clifton B. Parker, titled 'Research shows the best ways to learn math', that talks about what outdated mainstream education (and therefore most people) get wrong about mathematical thinking and ability.

[@God-ld6ll]

my two pieces of art. How to measure anything: treat such as a set of categorical points, or what i would call, for now (if you can guess why), pixel calculus. Treating "pixels" as a superset of "bits", or what i would call "pixits" or "pixies" for now. Hope this is clear, and also "pragmatic" or "useful". Could also be a "pragmatic approach" to things.

[@gordonwchas]

Loved this. Thank you for not explaining this in a convoluted way.

[@VisualZentube]

"Galileo Galilei in his II Saggiatore wrote that “[The universe] is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures.” Artists who strive and seek to study nature must therefore first fully understand mathematics. On the other hand, mathematicians have sought to interpret and analyse art through the lens of geometry and rationality."

[@nothinginteresting1662]

This is my dream video....😁

[@_SimpleJack_]

"he did the math on accident before he excaped" - most American sentence ever

[@shakiMiki]

Art historians are notorious for getting things wrong. However much they may know, desire for things to be so, for the best or most base reason, totally distorts their judgement. That is why fakes are so easy to slip through. Experts can seee what they want or need to.

[@LukeVilent]

Thing is - math is art. Choosing what you want to work on in math is not different from choosing an artistic style. And why I can't call myself an artist, I feel that once you choose the style, a good piece of art follows as if by itself, like theorem from a set of axioms.

[@Jesse-zk9ge]

Personally for me, although being a starving artist I might be a little biased. But I think stuff like this is actually the right way to use tools like math. I think it's a lot better than using our gifts and talents to squander in a way, the incredible way that people create things. Personally I think that we should be using our gifts more and art in cures, then greed and bombs.✌

[@SS-pw8en]

Meth or math? 😆

[@Jesse-zk9ge]

@@SS-pw8en whoops sorry! I used the talk to text feature, it tends to screw up worse than my old phone. There I think I fixed it. Thank you.🙏✌

[@ivanborsuk1110]

2:57 2 * 2 = 2

[@carlosvergara4132]

"As wide a 2 car garage doors" Just use meters man 😅

[@shakiMiki]

Americans will use anything but metric measure.

[@jensphiliphohmann1876]

00:45f: _...computers which can process images in ways humans can not._ Technically, they can, it takes just way too much time. Humans programmed the computers in the first place with that very algorithms which do that work.

[@KitsukiiPlays]

Actually, math and art have one thing is common: I can’t understand either

[@jurajchobot]

Is it possible to make the same video but for music?

[@paullough4946]

One of my Uncles was the best art forger in the Western Hemisphere

[@zralok]

This is like the most basic introduction to image analysis, but good video.

[@jonatanromanowski9519]

Go Go Sci Show!

[@bruh-xm6fv]

WOOOAAHHGGH

[@briancrainfan]

Get well soon

[@robertfindley921]

This technology has been around for 30+ years. It's been used in probably every major discipline known such as medicine, archeology, meteorology, metallurgy, astronomy, .... Computers are just better and faster at it today.

[@sdwvit]

which tech are you referring too? markov chains or kmeans?

[@MariaMartinez-researcher]

4:27. Summa Theologica is not just a "14th century religious text." For starters, it was published in 1485, so it is a *15th century* work. It is one of the biggest, most important, *first systematic* compilation of (theological) knowledge in the history of knowledge. Yep, for non-Christian (Catholic, specifically) or non-religious people the magnum opus of St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, may seem unimportant, but the history of culture includes all manifestations of culture, and that includes religion; Christianity is, for better and for worse, a defining element of Western civilization and culture. Most of the video is about a religious painting. Without basic theological knowledge, you won't be able to recognize the characters in it nor understand what the painting *means.* Also, theological librarian here. Summa Theologica is a fundamental part in the education of modern Catholic priests, and very important for other churches too. It's an *encyclopedia,* written centuries before the Encyclopédie. Please check the Wikipedia article for more details.

[@michaelmicek]

Yes... it was an astounding abstraction. Another commenter who has spent more time with Dominicans than he wanted thought it was excellent.

[@JWQweqOPDH]

In a way calling neural networks math is like calling humans chemistry. It's technically true.

[@michaelmicek]

Yeah, this is all numbers. Mathematicians rarely deal with so many numbers. What this really is is engineering.

[@theonlyabduuu]

this is really helpful for my exhibition and it is even helpful to make me a successful kid and i am a 11 year old kid

[@robbob1866]

I can see this being misused instead of being a "tool". Investigators can get too close and familiar with the "experts" they use and develop a bias flavouring the results of the expert without getting a second opinion or insuring that the person has the credentials for that subject. Basically the program can learn what gets liked most and a person might get more reliant on it's results rather than putting in an effort to double check it

[@lauram9478]

❤

[@yanguskhan8513]

i misread the title of this video as "how meth can help decode art"... that would be a completely wild video.

[@TrippLilley]

Disappointed that you didn’t credit the principal investigator on the Ghent project, Phil McCracken.

[@sleepypotato4046]

I’ve felt upset with no rime or reason for it. Bo particular trigger and no negative thoughts in my mind. Just feelings. Can you make a video about that? ❤

[@AA-eq2zq]

You should see a doctor and psychiatrist about that if possible and look the issue up ("mood swings" and "feel upset for no reason" should be good search phrases). Wishing you well!

[@sleepypotato4046]

@@AA-eq2zq thanks❤️

X-rays also reveal that art supplies have always been expensive and maybe the artist is just saving coin 🤷‍♂️

[@riccardo_aquilanti]

Yes it's mathematics, but it wouldn't be possible without computer science

[@michaelmicek]

I would say it's hardly math, and hardly computer science... which is kind of theoretical applied math anyway, and not really about computers (as the quote attributed to Dijkstra explains).

[@kellydalstok8900]

When is the world finally going to learn to pronounce Van Gogh? If I were to pronounce Hank’s name using the Dutch rules of pronunciation, he would be called Hahnk Grain, with a gutteral R. But we try to pronounce names like they’re supposed to. English speakers really are living in a bubble when it comes to language.

[@michaelmicek]

"Europeans call Niklaus Wirth by name, but Americans call him by value."

[@Rick.Fleischer]

Michelangelo was a mathematical artist.

[@yellowflowerorangeflower5706]

Cool

[@brendanmooney7607]

NO EDGE!

[@erkindanger]

DUDE, NO EDGE!!

[@donpeters9849]

I'm thinking that there are a lot of sellers/collectors, very worried about this.

[@paineoftheworld]

First, we must take the idealized, fully spherical piece of art and measure its volume of worthiness...

[@michaelmicek]

That would raise the level of discussion to physics. Still not math.

[@Rhenzkiller]

in movies this is called "enhance"

[@michaelcovelli9461]

Fun fact the ghent altarpiece was, at one time, painted over by art restorers. The lamb was made less ugly but was later removed to reveal its creepy ass face! Also I hope you’re hanging in there Hank❤️

[@Zappygunshot]

I'd like to point out that, in fact, _literally all_ art today still involves a human that can love and suffer and experience the world. AI 'generated' art isn't a new creation, the AI has just stuck together stuff from a database, in a way that AI's creator said it should, based on input parameters provided by a commissioner. When it comes to who made that, it's not the person who typed in the prompt; they're a commissioner. It isn't the person who made the AI, either; they crafted a tool to be used by others. And it certainly isn't the AI; they had no intent of their own. Therefore, the person or people that made the work is the person or people that made the things in the AI's database. Humans, not AI.

[@krellend20]

Is this the focus testing to see if saying "Math" goes over better than "AI"?

[@sarahkatenoel]

Lololol. Okay, I admit it! "Computers using statistics" does sound better to me than "Skynet."

[@catherinebaldwin6580]

But this is technically not an AI, it’s a stats computer problem. That like saying a toaster is a robot because it does a task. The only AI is the neural network, which to be honest is more correct and cooler sounding. An AI is a general process that can change it task if the job changes. A stats computer program is not that.

[@sarahkatenoel]

@@catherinebaldwin6580 I'm confused, I thought AI that can dynamically change to fit a broad range of problems was called General AI? And that, um, G-AI was under the umbrella term of "AI" along with "Neural Nets," and "Machine Learning"? (I'm actually asking, my AI/ML knowledge is extra basic and I want to eventually get the terminology right)

[@catherinebaldwin6580]

@@sarahkatenoel Sorry. There too many different types of "AI" Specific AI is design to do a 'task' like beat the human in a game. They can change based on the moves of the human, but can't say, predict weather. General AI is technical impossible right now. It's an AI that can predict the weather, beat the gamer, control a robot, all with one program. This is not an Specific or General AI, because the outside can't change it's behavior. It will always do say, 2+ no matter the number. Neural Network is a type of AI, that is so compilated, but it still Specific AI. I just wish there was a diferent word for the Neural Networks designing art vs the level 1 COM on Smash Bros. I just Really, Really don't like how they use the same name, because they aren't the same thing.

[@sarahkatenoel]

@@catherinebaldwin6580 That makes sense, thank you

[@peter4210]

Math cant decode art. Math can't even handle a division

[@diegoantoniorosariopalomin9979]

People who have read Steel Ball run can confirm

[@madtscientist8853]

I'm going to say this we used math to make art so it only makes sense to reverse engineer it use math to decode it. 101

[@gaeshows1938]

Bagayna

[@filonin2]

Why is everything italic?

[@sugarfish]

I guess it would take a few more episodes to explain how AI create new art in real artist’s style.

[@michaelmicek]

Yeah, I expect Markov modeling is involved, though.

[@rustix3]

Title should be more like how computers can help decode art.

[@alexzheng7441]

Hey, did anyone instantly think of 3blue1brown?

[@TheRealSkeletor]

Anybody who thinks math and art are separate and unrelated things is neither familiar with Fibonacci spirals nor with the Golden Ratio. Also, "Van Gogh" is not pronounced like "Van Go."

[@jensphiliphohmann1876]

I never thought of maths and art as opposites.

[@curtiswritt8474]

The first time I read the title I read How meth can decode art!

[@Trag-zj2yo]

Might put art forgers out of business

[@michaelmicek]

Nah, on the contrary, it will lead to better and better forgeries.

[@ibrahiymmuhammad4773]

Answer to why more people that wear glasses are nerds

[@oldman_eleven]

Hey at least youre not telling us math is racist.

[@jandoel]

Oh man, you're probably better off enrolling at the University of Phoenix than getting an art history degree these days

[@johnmaurer8596]

I was hoping this was going to be about the geometry used to layout paintings. :|

[@CaritasGothKaraoke]

Please start pronouncing Van Gogh’s name correctly. How would you like it if someone mangled your name like that. The “gh” IS NOT SILENT.

[@michaelmicek]

No, because 'murica. (Says the man who spells his name "Micek" but insists on "me check".)

[@deborahbloom4624]

WWwwwhhhhhhhhaaaaaaatttttt????

[@xpndblhero5170]

I don't like the idea of this..... It's a little to Matrix for me. LoL

[@steubens7]

title of this one does disservice to the content, almost didn't watch it

[@shakiMiki]

You might be the problem dude. This is an enticing title.

[@steubens7]

@@shakiMiki it's not decoding art, there's actually interesting stuff in here about wavelet decomposition and convolution and it isn't going for ai clickbait even though making a model is part of the process