It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a...

Hand knitted Lorenz Manifold

CHAOTIC CRAFTWORK. A crocheted Lorenz manifold brings the shape's swirls into sharp relief. Univ. of Bristol

"...For years, Osinga and Krauskopf, both of the University of Bristol in England, had been studying the Lorenz manifold, a complicated surface that emerges from a model of chaotic weather systems. The pair had created an algorithm to generate 2-dimensional computer visualizations of the surface, but Osinga found the flat images unsatisfying. When Krauskopf asked his question, she suddenly realized that the computer algorithm could be interpreted as crochet instructions. "I had to try it," she says. Eighty-five hours and 25,511 crochet stitches later, Osinga had a Lorenz manifold almost a meter tall and about 25 centimeters in diameter, which now hangs in the pair's house as a decoration..."