[chwahoo]

I was expecting (or hoping) that the pictorial versions would somehow illuminate why these various identities hold. But they seem to be just an alternative set of symbols.

I wonder why numerals are used to represent 2 and 3 in some places, but stacked boxes are used in others?

The idea appears to be that artists find the use of colors easier to memorize / mentally manipulate compared to letters for variable identifiers. I'm not an artist, so I'm curious if others find this to be true.

[hsmyers]

Actually as both artist and mathematician, the first thing I had to do is 'translate' her visualization into something I could relate to my visualization on a given subject. Hmmm--- that is not really clear; I suppose what I mean is that we all 'see' things differently, the trick is to line things up! BTW, I didn't really notice the colors, so for me at least they made little difference...