Mathematica Logos thru its History

By Xah Lee. Date:

Here's a history of Mathematica logos thru its versions. All these are designed by Michael Trott.

I am updating my Mathematica files from version 4 to version 7 for my Visual Dictionary of Special Plane Curves and other projects. I have been more or less 10 years out of touch with Mathematica. In the process, i need new Mathematica icons to represent Mathematica files. While searching the icons on the web, one thing leads to another, i created this page to update my familiarity of Mathematica's logo of the years i wasn't in touch.

Version 8 (2010)

Mathematica 8 logo
Mathematica 8 logo.

Version 7 (2008)

Mathematica 7 logo
Mathematica 7 logo.

Version 6 (2007)

Mathematica 6 logo
6

Version 5 (2003)

Mathematica 5 logo
5

Version 4 (1999)

m4
4
Mathematica 4 logo
4

Version 3 (1996)

Mathematica 3 logo
3

Version 2 (1991)

Mathematica 2 logo-11261
Mathematica 2 logo.

Version 1 (1988)

m1
1

Misc Notes

My favorite is version 2's logo. LOL. Second favorite is version 8's. Third favorite would be version 1's logo — the plain stellated icosahedron. The ones i like the least is version 7's logo, and 6's logo. They lost much of the math's beauty of simplicity and structure. In particular, if you look them them closely, they have artifacts of some flower-like arcs inside, and also the gradient coloring. They are caused in part by the complex gaps of the surface patches, possibilty also caused by partial transparency of the surface.

Some of the graphics on this page are too small and not in high quality. For each version, i'd like to have 2 images. One being the exact official image as a logo, preferably in png file format. (for example: a high quality scan of the Mathematica box would be perfect.) The second being the polyhedron as a 3D model, possbily with lower polygon count. And might have different orientation, different lighting, but still maintain the artistic nature, and can be rotated dynamically in browser using LiveGraphics3D or JavaView.

It takes a lot time to find the right images or code, if they exist publically at all. If you have a URL for the image or notebook, please let me know. Thanks.

References