Hi John, first of all, thank you for taking the time to write this blog. I only wish I had the time to read the sheer volume of material you put out.
I just wanted to say that the pictures in this post reminded me a lot of the plates made by Ernst Haeckel. I don't know if you knew of him before, but check him out, I think his drawings are pretty exquisite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel
My background is in mathematics and when I was studying combinatorics we learnt about some of the rules governing the connections you can make around those webbed looking balls, something called the Euler characteristic:
Things like why you can or can't surround the ball only in squares or pentagons or hexagons, but have to use specific combinations of them. Some famous shapes that satisfy these relations are the buckyball, or the traditional pattern around a soccer ball (with the pentagons and hexagons).
The Lord takes special care in designing beautifully intricate, infinitesimal organisms that can spread in your body and kill you slowly and horribly. Don't forget to thank Him for His bounteous beneficence this holiday season.
I love how nature has geometry and form, yet is not mechanically perfectly proportioned.
7 comments:
http://io9.com/5715076/non+newtonian-fluids-the-weirdest-liquids-youve-ever-seen
The neat properties of custard!
Hi John, first of all, thank you for taking the time to write this blog. I only wish I had the time to read the sheer volume of material you put out.
I just wanted to say that the pictures in this post reminded me a lot of the plates made by Ernst Haeckel. I don't know if you knew of him before, but check him out, I think his drawings are pretty exquisite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel
My background is in mathematics and when I was studying combinatorics we learnt about some of the rules governing the connections you can make around those webbed looking balls, something called the Euler characteristic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler_characteristic#Polyhedra
Things like why you can or can't surround the ball only in squares or pentagons or hexagons, but have to use specific combinations of them. Some famous shapes that satisfy these relations are the buckyball, or the traditional pattern around a soccer ball (with the pentagons and hexagons).
Kind regards,
-Emilio.
What a beautiful post.
Microscopic things are cool.
The Lord takes special care in designing beautifully intricate, infinitesimal organisms that can spread in your body and kill you slowly and horribly. Don't forget to thank Him for His bounteous beneficence this holiday season.
mike f.: LOL!
What if we looked up in the sky one evening and the Moon suddenly looked like one of those microscopic thingies?
You have yet to see a Mandelbrot Fractal... in 3D !
Behold mathematical nonsense in the universe of imaginary numbers :
http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/mandelbulb.html
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