Coral reefs, with their brilliant colours, their interwoven and tangled forms and their curving and rippling surfaces, are the central theme of the Australian sisters Margaret and Christine Wertheim. As scientists, they analyse the aesthetic of mathematical theories and biological phenomena. The "Institute for Figuring" (IFF), which they founded in Los Angeles in 2005, aims to promote public understanding for the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science, mathematics and technology and to si...