On 21 Apr 2007, at 15:07, @-_q @@ wrote:
the program you talk is this?
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/downloadtrial/radio4/inourtime/
inourtime_20070419-0900_40_st.mp3
yes - make sure you download it soon, it'll be online till tuesday I
think
i hope i don't miss many things because it is in english, ajj
the last thing i've been thinking about was the fact of improvisation.
i wonder if it could be said that humans tend to improvise in
symmetric patterns
interesting thought, I'd say this is true in the case of many musicians
improvising, but then I'd say that music itself has an innate symmetry
through rhythm and tone, and in it's physical dynamic as a waveform (eg
double the wavelength and the tone moves down one octave, the sub
harmonics of a vibrating string appearing as recursively divided
vibrations of the overall note)
and...
this is stupid, but funny... i've been thinking about the new
criatures in science fict movies, for instance, and all them, as far
as i remember, are symmetric, no matter if they have body of man and
head of fish, or they resemble sort-of-horses... they all are
symmetric. even the characters of pixar's monsters s.a. were
symmetric.
the program mentions our cognitive perception of other things that are
symmetrical - in nature this can be seen in recognition of other
animals for survival - eat or be eaten ! the symmetry of flowers and
bees sensitivity to this symmetry whilst having otherwise quite poor
visual perception.
When things that we concieve *should* be symmetrical are not, they
appear odd; if the non symmetry is subtle it is quite difficult to
describe what actually *is* odd about what we see; whether it be
reflective symmetry or rotational symmetry. In a more extreme case, say
an amputee, our brain becomes quite fascinated with the missing limb.
the mythical cyclops whilst appearing symmetrical plays this further;
the one eye upsetting our percieved idea of a face and thus making it
appear strange or unworldly.
Something not discussed in the program is the effect of environmental
factors on our visual perception, take for example the Müller-Lyer
Illusion where two lines of equal length appear different when
arrowheads are added, pointing inward on ne line and outward on the
other:
"Experiments reported in 1966 by Segall, Campbell and Herskovitz
suggested that the Müller-Lyer illusion may be absent or reduced
amongst people who grow up in certain environments. They tested some
Zulu people in South Africa who, at the time, lived in circular huts
with arched doorways and had little experience of Western rectangular
buildings. The Zulus seemed less affected by the Müller-Lyer illusion.
The argument is that these people lived in a 'circular culture' whereas
those who are more subject to the illusion live in a 'carpentered
world' of rectangles and parallel lines (Segall, Campbell & Herskovits
1966). Europeans and Americans are more likely to interpret oblique and
acute angles as displaced right angles and to perceive two-dimensional
drawings in terms of depth."
[ http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/MC10220/visper04.html ]
lord voldemort is a symmetric criature, all rowling's immaginarium...
if there is any fiction criature asymmetric as siniestra, please, do
tell me...
neil jenkins escribió:
God symmetry wasn't discussed, although the subject of religion came
up when they talked about the Alhambra, saying that as pictures of
animals or anything with a soul were not allowed to be depicted, they
used geometric symmetry to express the infinite complexity of god
I found some interesting historical references lookin at quadratic
equations in wikipedia [
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_equation ] which noted Turkish
and Indian mathematicians solving these equations, notable
Brahmagupta in the 7th century, who first discovered the negative
solutions (ie the square root of 4 is 2 or it's symmetric -2) he also
popularised the concept of the number 0
In terms of art, the discussion also raised the issue of artists and
their use of symmetry and also disrupting it. poetry has always had
an innate symmetry to me in phrasing and rhythm -
"Traditional meaning of symmetry
The meaning of this term went through a fabulous transformation
during its use for dozens of centuries. The proper translation of the
Greek term symmetria – (from the prefix syn [common] and the noun
metros [measure]) – is 'common measure'. The Greeks interpreted this
word, as the harmony of the different parts of an object, the good
proportions between its constituent parts. Later this meaning was
transferred to e.g., the rhythm of poems, of music, the cosmos
('well-ordered system of the universe as contrast of chaos').
Therefore the Latin and the modern European languages used its
translations like harmony, proportion until the Renaissance. In wider
sense, balance, equilibrium belonged also to this family of synonyms.
Some way symmetry was always related to beauty, truth and good.
(These relative meanings determined its application in the arts, the
sciences, and the ethics, respectively.) Symmetry was not only
related to such positive values, it became even a symbol of seeking
for perfection."
[ http://symmetry.hu/definition.html ]
This program came at a perfect moment for me as i was re-working the
maths i'd used in the spirograp[h]d interface for Pall Thayer's PANSE
[ http://130.208.220.190/panse/gallery.php ] - the complex set of
sliders aren't that easy to see in terms of a physical spirograph set
and i wanted to work out how to create the patterns by choosing outer
ring size, disc size and pen position - alot simpler to
conceptualise.
last night i listened to the program again, and inadvertantly left a
Philip Glass track [ In The Upper Room: Dance IX ] playing, the
resulting mix was pure serendepity
:) inpsired
On 21 Apr 2007, at 11:06, @-_q @@ wrote:
neil, thanks a lot...
years ago, i wrote a short storie, sinister,
in spanish siniestra
which can be the name of a woman, a property of a sort of darkness,
or it can refer to left sides too...
that woman had a problem, a progresive sickness... her left side was
melting down, sort of melting down...
the idea shocked me so much that i made a drawing of a nude women
sat on a elegant armchair with her right side like a beautiful woman
and with her left side like a mess mass hunged at her right side of
the body.
this was funny, but there is more...
i've already share with you that i suffer dislexy, even typing, not
only writing... i change b and p
i'm really interested on the differences between our 2 cerebral
hemispheres...
marchall mc luhan worked with it, and each hemisphere have a
property.
but the funny thing is that the capacity of language or motion or
making music is not placed simetric in our brain... or i have not
the right information...
....
did the speakers talk about god or a similar entity?
did they lucubrate about god symmetry?
as far as i've read (the 3 books and other religious text), god is
not worry about symetry, but he "created" a symmetric nature.
as far as i remember, no kabala writer wrote about the symmetric
event... sufi poetry or bagavad ghita...
... may be sacred music (christian, jew, sufi or hinduist...)
...
did gilles deleuze talked about symmetrics in the rizoma?
i did not find it.
i think we have french members in NetB that can know about it.
i mean, there may be members in NetB who know more about what i've
commented... if i'm wrong in any hypothesis, please, tell me, even
if i talk from the wrong point of view... the wrong place to watch
at it.
---
in my creative work, i always break symmetry because i feel my brain
when it stands in front of asymmetries: i feel physically how it
works !
one of the things i'm doing is working at the input of sound: i
record my voice from left speaker to right speaker and so on, and
that makes a sort of brain massage... try it...
what my brain feels in front of symmetries is... relief !
and, for instances, drawing symmetric mandalas smooth me down
isn't it funny?
***
**
*
neil jenkins escribió:
tricky to transpose, but here goes..
early neolithic sculptures in regular forms, cognitive recognition
of symmmetric forms (by animals/humans and artists), cuniform,
babylonian maths and greek geometry, methods for solving (and
working out) quadratic and cubic equations (respectively) - (method
and conic sections), algebra in place of derived solution tables,
mathematical transformations and group theory (*no transformation
is part of the subset of symmetrical transformations, or
'operations' - nothing is something.. ), the alhambra, bell
ringing, the lack of a solution for quintic equations and 'atoms'
of symmetry - shapes divided by shapes, indivisible symmetries
phew.. i won't start on the last 20 minutes and misquote einstein :)
On 19 Apr 2007, at 23:22, @-_q @@ wrote:
neil, if you go,
could you write just a little bit of what you heard there?
(pleasepleaseplease)
neil jenkins escribió:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/downloadtrial/radio4/inourtime/
inourtime_20070419-0900_40_st.mp3
-->
SYMMETRY
Today we will be discussing symmetry, from the most perfect forms
in nature, like the snowflake and the butterfly, to our
perceptions of beauty in the human face. There's symmetry too in
most of the laws that govern our physical world.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle described symmetry as one of the
greatest forms of beauty to be found in the mathematical
sciences, while the French poet Paul Valery went further,
declaring; “The universe is built on a plan, the profound
symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of
our intellect”.
The story of symmetry tracks an extraordinary shift from its role
as an aesthetic model - found in the tiles in the Alhambra and
Bach's compositions - to becoming a key tool to understanding how
the physical world works. It provides a major breakthrough in
mathematics with the development of group theory in the 19th
century. And it is the unexpected breakdown of symmetry at
sub-atomic level that is so tantalising for contemporary quantum
physicists.
So why is symmetry so prevalent and appealing in both art and
nature? How does symmetry enable us to grapple with monstrous
numbers? And how might symmetry contribute to the elusive Theory
of Everything?
Contributors
Fay Dowker, Reader in Theoretical Physics at Imperial College,
London
Marcus du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at the University of
Oxford
Ian Stewart, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick
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