Willmore Surface Images
http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~jms
jms@math.uiuc.edu
Back to my other Mathematical Images.
See also photographs
I took of Tom Willmore and other mathematicians standing
next to the Willmore/Boy's surface sculpture at Oberwolfach.
The Willmore bending energy of a surface is the integral (over that
surface) of squared mean curvature.
A Willmore surface is a minimum (or any critical
point) for this energy. One way to get a Willmore surface (in R^3)
is to stereographically project a minimal surface in S^3.
The two surfaces pictured here arise in this way
from a pair of conjugate minimal surfaces in S^3.