Log24

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Backlight

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:09 am

The epigraph of the previous post

"To Phaedrus, this backlight from the conflict between
the Sophists and the Cosmologists adds an entirely
new dimension to the Dialogues of Plato." — Robert M. Pirsig

Related reading and art for academic nihilists — See . . .

Reading and art I prefer —

Love in the Ruins , by Walker Percy, and . . .

Van Gogh  (by Ed Arno) and an image and
a passage from The Paradise of Childhood
(by Edward Wiebé):

'Dear Theo' cartoon of van Gogh by Ed Arno, adapted to illustrate the eightfold cube

Saturday, July 1, 2023

Mechanical Plaything (Hinged) vs. Conceptual Art (Unhinged)

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — m759 @ 2:44 pm

"Infinity Cube" … hinged plaything, for sale —

"Eightfold Cube" … un hinged concept, not for sale—

See as well yesterday's Trickster Fuge ,
and a 1906 discussion of the eightfold cube:

Page from 'The Paradise of Childhood,' 1906 edition

Wednesday, February 9, 2022

8!

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , — m759 @ 12:03 am

Conwell, 1910 — 

(In modern notation, Conwell is showing that the complete
projective group of collineations and dualities of the finite
3-space PG (3,2) is of order 8 factorial, i.e. "8!"
In other words, that any  permutation of eight things may be
regarded as a geometric transformation of PG (3,2).)

Later discussion of this same "Klein correspondence"
between Conwell's 3-space and 5-space . . .

A somewhat simpler toy model —

Page from 'The Paradise of Childhood,' 1906 edition

Related fiction —  "The Bulk Beings" of the film "Interstellar."

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Mind the Gaps

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — m759 @ 12:23 pm

Katherine Neville's 'The Eight,' edition with knight on cover, on her April 4 birthday

Page from 'The Paradise of Childhood,' 1906 edition

Sunday, September 27, 2020

Gleaming the Cube

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — m759 @ 1:30 am

From a search in this journal for “Paradise of Childhood” —

Page from 'The Paradise of Childhood,' 1906 edition

Friday, April 17, 2020

A Mechanism of Fission

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 3:01 pm

The above title was suggested by the previous post, Explosive Remarks.

'On Froebel's Third Gift,' from 'Paradise of Childhood,' 1906

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

“Before Time Began, There Was the Cube”

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 8:00 am

See Eightfold Froebel.

The Paradise of Childhood'-- Froebel's Third Gift

Friday, January 5, 2018

Seven Types of Interality*

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , , — m759 @ 1:00 am

'Paradise of CHildhood'— on Froebel's Third Gift

* See the term interality  in this journal.
For many synonyms, see
The Human Seriousness of Interality,”
by Peter Zhang, Grand Valley State University,
China Media Research  11(2), 2015, 93-103.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Mimzy vs. Mimsy

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , , , — m759 @ 11:00 am

 

Deep Play:

Mimzy vs. Mimsy

From a 2007 film, "The Last Mimzy," based on
the classic 1943 story by Lewis Padgett
  "Mimsy Were the Borogoves"–

http://www.log24.com/log/pix10/100219-LastMimzyTrailer.jpg

As the above mandala pictures show,
the film incorporates many New Age fashions.

The original story does not.

A more realistic version of the story
might replace the mandalas with
the following illustrations–

The Eightfold Cube and a related page from a 1906 edition of 'Paradise of Childhood'

Click to enlarge.

For a commentary, see "Non-Euclidean Blocks."

(Here "non-Euclidean" means simply
other than  Euclidean. It does not imply any
  violation of Euclid's parallel postulate.)

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Wednesday August 12, 2009

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 12:00 pm
Exegesis

Text:

The Shining,
1977, page 162:

“A new headline, this one
 dated April 10….”

“The item on the next page
 was a mere squib, dated
 four months later….”

Exegesis:

April 10— Good Friday– See
The Paradise of Childhood.

Four months later– Aug. 10

“When he thought of the old man
  he could see him suddenly
  in a field in the spring,
  trying to move a gray boulder.”

Friday, April 10, 2009

Friday April 10, 2009

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: — m759 @ 8:00 am

Pilate Goes
to Kindergarten

“There is a pleasantly discursive
 treatment of Pontius Pilate’s
unanswered question
‘What is truth?’.”

— H. S. M. Coxeter, 1987,
introduction to Trudeau’s
 remarks on the “Story Theory
 of truth as opposed to the
Diamond Theory” of truth in
 The Non-Euclidean Revolution

Consider the following question in a paper cited by V. S. Varadarajan:

E. G. Beltrametti, “Can a finite geometry describe physical space-time?” Universita degli studi di Perugia, Atti del convegno di geometria combinatoria e sue applicazioni, Perugia 1971, 57–62.

Simplifying:

“Can a finite geometry describe physical space?”

Simplifying further:

“Yes. VideThe Eightfold Cube.'”

Froebel's 'Third Gift' to kindergarteners: the 2x2x2 cube, in 'Paradise of Childhood'

Friday, December 19, 2008

Friday December 19, 2008

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , , , , — m759 @ 1:06 pm
Inside the
White Cube

Part I: The White Cube

The Eightfold Cube

Part II: Inside
 
The Paradise of Childhood'-- Froebel's Third Gift

Part III: Outside

Mark Tansey, 'The Key' (1984)

Click to enlarge.

Mark Tansey, The Key (1984)

For remarks on religion
related to the above, see
Log24 on the Garden of Eden
and also Mark C. Taylor,
"What Derrida Really Meant"
(New York Times, Oct. 14, 2004).

For some background on Taylor,
see Wikipedia. Taylor, Chairman
of the Department of Religion
at
Columbia University, has a
1973 doctorate in religion from
Harvard University. His opinion
of Derrida indicates that his
sympathies lie more with
the serpent than with the angel
in the Tansey picture above.

For some remarks by Taylor on
the art of Tansey relevant to the
structure of the white cube
(Part I above), see Taylor's
The Picture in Question:
Mark Tansey and the
Ends of Representation

(U. of Chicago Press, 1999):

From Chapter 3,
"Sutures* of Structures," p. 58:

"What, then, is a frame, and what is frame work?

This question is deceptive in its simplicity. A frame is, of course, 'a basic skeletal structure designed to give shape or support' (American Heritage Dictionary)…. when the frame is in question, it is difficult to determine what is inside and what is outside. Rather than being on one side or the other, the frame is neither inside nor outside. Where, then, Derrida queries, 'does the frame take place….'"

* P. 61:
"… the frame forms the suture of structure. A suture is 'a seamless [sic**] joint or line of articulation,' which, while joining two surfaces, leaves the trace of their separation."

 ** A dictionary says "a seamlike joint or line of articulation," with no mention of "trace," a term from Derrida's jargon.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Wednesday July 9, 2008

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 8:28 am
God, Time, Epiphany

8:28:32 AM

Anthony Hopkins, from
All Hallows' Eve
last year
:

"For me time is God,
God is time. It's an equation,
like an Einstein equation."

James Joyce, from
June 26 (the day after
AntiChristmas) this year
:

"… he glanced up at the clock
of the Ballast Office and smiled:
— It has not epiphanised yet,
he said."

Ezra Pound (from a page
linked to yesterday morning):

"It seems quite natural to me
that an artist should have
just as much pleasure in an
arrangement of planes
or in a pattern of figures,
  as in painting portraits…."

From Epiphany 2008:

An arrangement of planes:

http://www.log24.com/log/pix08/080709-Epiphany.gif

From May 10, 2008:

A pattern of figures:

 

Seven partitions of the 2x2x2 cube in 'Paradise of Childhood'

See also Richard Wilhelm on
Hexagram 32 of the I Ching:

 

"Duration is a state whose movement is not worn down by hindrances. It is not a state of rest, for mere standstill is regression. Duration is rather the self-contained and therefore self-renewing movement of an organized, firmly integrated whole, taking place in accordance with immutable laws and beginning anew at every ending. The end is reached by an inward movement, by inhalation, systole, contraction, and this movement turns into a new beginning, in which the movement is directed outward, in exhalation, diastole, expansion."

 

'The Middle-English Harrowing of Hell,' by Hulme, 1907, page 64, line 672: 'with this he gaf the gaste'

The Middle-English
    Harrowing of Hell…

    by Hulme, 1907, page 64

Friday, July 4, 2008

Friday July 4, 2008

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , , — m759 @ 8:00 am
REDEMPTION

"I need a photo-opportunity,
I want a shot at redemption.
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard."
— Paul Simon

From Log24 on June 27, 2008,
the day that comic-book artist
Michael Turner died at 37 —

Van Gogh (by Ed Arno) in
The Paradise of Childhood

(by Edward Wiebé):

'Dear Theo' cartoon of van Gogh by Ed Arno, adapted to illustrate the eightfold cube


Two tomb raiders: Lara Croft and H.S.M. Coxeter

For Turner's photo-opportunity,
click on Lara.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Tuesday May 27, 2008

Filed under: General — m759 @ 7:00 pm
From the
Cartoon Graveyard

Page from 'The Paradise of Childhood,' 1906 edition

The above is from
The Paradise of Childhood
,
a work first published in 1869.

For the late Thelma Keane,
wife of “Family Circus
cartoonist Bil Keane of
Paradise Valley, Arizona:

I need a photo-opportunity,

Thelma Keane, real-life 'Family Circus' mother
I want a shot at redemption.*
Don’t want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard.”
— Paul Simon
*                         
St. Barnabas on the Desert, Paradise Valley, Arizona

Mrs. Keane died May 23
(St. Sarah’s Eve)
according to
The Washington Post.
Related material:
Log24 on May 23,
Saints in Australia.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Sunday May 18, 2008

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: — m759 @ 2:02 pm

From the Grave

DENNIS OVERBYE

in yesterday's New York Times:

"From the grave, Albert Einstein
poured gasoline on the culture wars
between science and religion this week…."

An announcement of a
colloquium at Princeton:

Cartoon of Coxedter exhuming Geometry

Above: a cartoon,
"Coxeter exhuming Geometry,"
with the latter's tombstone inscribed

"GEOMETRY

  600 B.C. —
1900 A.D.
R.I.P."

Page from 'The Paradise of Childhood,' 1906 edition

The above is from
The Paradise of Childhood,
a work first published in 1869.

"I need a photo-opportunity,
I want a shot at redemption.
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard."

— Paul Simon

Einstein on TIME cover as 'Man of the Century'

Albert Einstein,
1879-1955:

"It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which was thus lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the chains of the 'merely-personal,' from an existence which is dominated by wishes, hopes and primitive feelings.  Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking.  The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation…."

Autobiographical Notes, 1949

Related material:

A commentary on Tom Wolfe's
"Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died"–

"The Neural Buddhists," by David Brooks,
 in the May 13 New York Times:

"The mind seems to have
the ability to transcend itself
and merge with a larger
presence that feels more real."

A New Yorker commentary on
a new translation of the Psalms:

"Suddenly, in a world without
Heaven, Hell, the soul, and
eternal salvation or redemption,
the theological stakes seem
more local and temporal:
'So teach us to number our days.'"

and a May 13 Log24 commentary
on Thomas Wolfe's
"Only the Dead Know Brooklyn"–

"… all good things — trout as well as
eternal salvation — come by grace
and grace comes by art
and art does not come easy."

A River Runs Through It

"Art isn't easy."
— Stephen Sondheim,
quoted in
Solomon's Cube.

For further religious remarks,
consult Indiana Jones and the
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
and The Librarian:
Return to King Solomon's Mines.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Saturday May 10, 2008

MoMA Goes to
Kindergarten

"… the startling thesis of Mr. Brosterman's new book, 'Inventing Kindergarten' (Harry N. Abrams, $39.95): that everything the giants of modern art and architecture knew about abstraction they learned in kindergarten, thanks to building blocks and other educational toys designed by Friedrich Froebel, a German educator, who coined the term 'kindergarten' in the 1830's."

— "Was Modernism Born
     in Toddler Toolboxes?"
     by Trip Gabriel, New York Times,
     April 10, 1997
 

RELATED MATERIAL

Figure 1 —
Concept from 1819:

Cubic crystal system
(Footnotes 1 and 2)

Figure 2 —
The Third Gift, 1837:

Froebel's third gift

Froebel's Third Gift

Froebel, the inventor of
kindergarten, worked as
an assistant to the
crystallographer Weiss
mentioned in Fig. 1.

(Footnote 3)

Figure 3 —
The Third Gift, 1906:

Seven partitions of the eightfold cube in 'Paradise of Childhood,' 1906

Figure 4 —
Solomon's Cube,
1981 and 1983:

Solomon's Cube - A 1981 design by Steven H. Cullinane

Figure 5 —
Design Cube, 2006:

Design Cube 4x4x4 by Steven H. Cullinane

The above screenshot shows a
moveable JavaScript display
of a space of six dimensions
(over the two-element field).

(To see how the display works,
try the Kaleidoscope Puzzle first.)

For some mathematical background, see

Footnotes:
 
1. Image said to be after Holden and Morrison, Crystals and Crystal Growing, 1982
2. Curtis Schuh, "The Library: Biobibliography of Mineralogy," article on Mohs
3. Bart Kahr, "Crystal Engineering in Kindergarten" (pdf), Crystal Growth & Design, Vol. 4 No. 1, 2004, 3-9

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