Slytherin: Guys, If We Don’t Make It Out Alive, I Just Want To Say That…

Dreaming of a future where writing code on coffee cups results in automatic refills…💭✨

Life with 3 dogs, I tell ya! I don’t have much time for reading these days, but life, right now, is full of fluffy cuddles and tail wags. I wouldn’t have it any other way 😊

Stephen Hawking, January 8, 1942 - March 14, 2018

Born 300 years to the day after Galileo died 

Died on Albert Einstein’s birthday 

March 14: Annual Pi day (π)  

“Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny” - S.H.

Geometry Matters. But why?

The contribution of geometry to the evolution of human and natural sciences is a well established fact. Since the Greeks started to realize that the argument is more powerful when backed up by empirical evidence, rather than previous experience, all sciences started to benefit from an approach that had something new: a system of thought. And that system was based on definitions and axioms given by geometric laws. For example, Pythagoras defined reality with three basic principles, extracted from geometric knowledge:

1. Some propositions must be accepted as true without being demonstrated.

2. All other propositions of the system are derived from these.

3. Their derivation must be formal and independent from the subject at matter.

And since for Pythagoras the things are an imitation of the numbers, their definitions and axioms, will reflect the universe, provide intangible harmony and build visible beauty.

The improving of left-right brain connections.

Most activities engage only one hemisphere of the brain and its corresponding functions: the left for language, hearing, logic and mathematics; the right for spatial recognition, images and music processing, symbolism and so on. By requiring both analytical thinking and spatial visualization, geometry activates processes that engage both sides of the brain at the same time, in resolving a given task. When picturing a cube, for example, the brain is tasked with recognizing spatial properties of the cube (height, depth etc) while maintaining its overall shape (by calculating its angles or the length of its segments). This leads to an elevated number of connections between the brain hemispheres, having a long-term benefit in the overall critical thinking or imagination of the geometry user.

The continuous visual representation of truth.

Because of the early traditions and methods of orally sharing and debating knowledge, the first visual (geometrical) representations of mathematical concepts where being drawn by scribes, sometimes directly when hearing a particular information.  This process was flawed, given that the person drawing did not posses geometric knowledge, thus leading to miss-interpretations and errors in the visual representation. In the early 300’s Euclid becomes aware of this error and begins drawing his own definitions and axioms, developing adjacent texts that can be understood by any mathematician or artist, for that matter.

And, with the introduction of the visual perspective by Leon Battista Alberti, the geometrical diagrams and laws became general accepted when depicting a mathematical truth or any given representation of reality.

Thus, geometry provides continuity in visual communication in general, and a context in which all individual things can be represented, calculated and later better understood.

The creation of visual reality.

The perception of the visual information and its abstract notions is connected to the perception of reality. As many others, Rudolph Arnheim shows how visual information is being formed by the perception of the new and by the memory of the old, showing a continuance in the cognitive process. And since all information has geometric properties when closely analyzed (height, weight, depth, curvature etc), geometry will be present in all aspects of the visual reality.

The perception of beauty and harmony in things.

If what is above is also below, geometry can be a mirror for these two dimensions. While symmetry defines what geometry is, geometric proportions and ratios define man’s perception of beauty and harmony. A harmonic state is associated with an element or an object having its inner components in perfect equilibrium.

Thus, nature is being perceived as beautiful and its creator, good. For example, the complex relation between symmetry and aesthetics is shown in how symmetry defines the perceived qualities of the human body and how these traits are a sign of good health or good genetic conditions.

Man uses beauty as an indicator of truth and while beauty is truth (Ian Stewart), symmetry, proportion and simplicity will define it.

While many of the elements of nature have an innate geometric structure - water, sound or even light - the more complex architecture of the perceived or the hidden dimensions of reality rely on very complex laws that have different types of shapes, boundaries, behaviors and interactions with the micro and the macro elements of the universe.

In analyzing these dimensions and interactions, many sciences rely on geometric studies and developments that generate universal accepted answers. For example, in his famous special relativity theory, Einstein describes the dimension of space-time by creating a coordinate system that fixes and standardizes measurements, in order to specify the relationship between a moving observer and the phenomenon or phenomena under observation.

The place of humans in space-time.

By placing man in the middle of all created things, human consciousness becomes a necessity of life. An antropocentric perspective explains why the universe has an age. Why the universe works at these exact parameters that an objective observer discovers. That we discover.

Thus, man connects himself to the main elements of the universe: the space-time and the fundamental laws of physics, geometric defined aspects of reality, that man can relate to, explore and evolve upon.

The geometric laws and ratios that nature confides in, are also bound to shape human existence. The human body, the human mind and their correspondent dimensions and proportions have geometric properties and attributes, similar to all other elements of nature.

The universal geometric code

The geometric code of information is inherent to nature, inherent to human consciousness and is present in all perceived and created forms, in the tangible and the intangible.

And maybe a reality built under the auspices of geometry is desirable, being a discipline developed with attention along several millennia and with which the greatest minds of history have created concepts, objects, religions and even the entire universe.

1 multiplies itself and creates 2. The paradigm of reality is the result of the conscious observation. If the system from which consciousness takes part is abstract, then reality is an abstraction of this, by reflecting itself and creating form.

2018 © Tib Roibu, Geometry Matters

NT Moment #6

When your catchphrase is 

“Not completely sure, but pretty sure I’m right”

The Houses as Programming Languages

Gryffindor: CSS

Ravenclaw: HTML

Hufflepuff: JavaScript

Slytherin: C#

Just imagine a world full of beautiful stained glass windows which also generate electricity…

[Oxford Photovoltaics]

LL Ori and the Orion Nebula : Stars can make waves in the Orion Nebula’s sea of gas and dust. This esthetic close-up of cosmic clouds and stellar winds features LL Orionis, interacting with the Orion Nebula flow. Adrift in Orion’s stellar nursery and still in its formative years, variable star LL Orionis produces a wind more energetic than the wind from our own middle-aged Sun. As the fast stellar wind runs into slow moving gas a shock front is formed, analogous to the bow wave of a boat moving through water or a plane traveling at supersonic speed. The small, arcing, graceful structure just above and left of center is LL Ori’s cosmic bow shock, measuring about half a light-year across. The slower gas is flowing away from the Orion Nebula’s hot central star cluster, the Trapezium, located off the upper left corner of the picture. In three dimensions, LL Ori’s wrap-around shock front is shaped like a bowl that appears brightest when viewed along the “bottom” edge. This beautiful painting-like photograph is part of a large mosaic view of the complex stellar nursery in Orion, filled with a myriad of fluid shapes associated with star formation. via NASA

a reminder for those studying maths

you are NOT stupid, or lazy or anything like that if you are struggling

maths is notorious for being super difficult

when you are in your own bubble of seeing loads of people studying maths in your lectures or classes, it is so easy to put yourself down and convince yourself you are not good enough

the truth is, you are still wonderful and brilliant at maths to get as far as you have

everyone else outside your maths classes thinks you are super smart and super crazy for choosing to do maths

please don’t put yourself down, and remember that you are wonderful

maths takes passion, hard work and focus, and you can do it