Phrase from a Wikipedia article on a "Columbian Exposition" —
"to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's
arrival in the New World in 1492"
Id est, 1892. Another exposition —
Saturday, November 4, 2023
Columbian Exposition
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Tuesday, February 21, 2023
For Harlan Kane: The Zenodo Files
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Sunday, December 18, 2022
“Square Round” — Ulysses, end of Ch. 17
Circle and Square at the Court of King Minos —
Harmonic analysis based on the circle involves the
circular functions. Dyadic harmonic analysis involves …
For some related history, see (for instance) . . .
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Wednesday, November 30, 2022
Now at Harvard: The Link Chase
From https://dash.harvard.edu/ a straightforward search now leads to . . .
Clicking on the above "Square Model" link leads to a summary page
with a "citable link" to itself . . .
https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37373777 :
— and then, clicking on the summary page's
"View/Open The square model of PG(3,2). (329.1Kb),"
you will see a two-page PDF . . .
— and finally, scrolling down on that PDF, you will come to . . .
.
Or you can just Google Cullinane square model .
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Tuesday, March 15, 2022
The Rosenhain Symmetry
See other posts now so tagged.
Hudson's Rosenhain tetrads, as 20 of the 35 projective lines in PG(3,2),
illustrate Desargues's theorem as a symmetry within 10 pairs of squares
under rotation about their main diagonals:
See also "The Square Model of Fano's 1892 Finite 3-Space."
The remaining 15 lines of PG(3,2), Hudson's Göpel tetrads, have their
own symmetries . . . as the Cremona-Richmond configuration.
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Monday, May 10, 2021
For a Quicker Picker-Upper
“The following is an excerpt from Joshua Cohen’s
new novel, The Netanyahus, out next week
in the UK from Fitzcarraldo Editions, and on June 22
in the US from New York Review Books.”
— https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/
online-only/an-american-historian/
” After half a century in the professorate,
I was recently retired from my post as the
Andrew William Mellon Memorial Professor
of American Economic History at Corbin University
in Corbindale, New York, in the occasionally rural,
occasionally wild heart of Chautauqua County,
just inland from Lake Erie among the apple orchards
and apiaries and dairies—or, as dismissive, geographically
illiterate New York City–folk insist on calling it, ‘Upstate.’ ”
For some background on the source, see Wikipedia
on Joshua Cohen and on n+1 magazine.
A related search result:
Though the n+1 piece was published April 27, I have only now noticed it.
Perhaps some quicker picker-upper in Chautauqua County has already
written about the novel’s local color.
A post from this journal on that date, April 27, was related to my own
non-fictional college experience in Fredonia, NY (Chautauqua County) —
Tuesday, April 27, 2021 —New Site
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Thursday, April 22, 2021
A New Concrete Model for an Old Abstract Space
The April 20 summary I wrote for ScienceOpen.com suggests
a different presentation of an Encyclopedia of Mathematics
article from 2013 —
(Click to enlarge.)
Keywords: PG(3,2), Fano space, projective space, finite geometry, square model,
Cullinane diamond theorem, octad group, MOG.
Cite as
Cullinane, Steven H. (2021).
“The Square Model of Fano’s 1892 Finite 3-Space.”
Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4718182 .
An earlier version of the square model of PG(3,2) —
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Thursday, March 4, 2021
Teaching the Academy to See
“Art bears the same relationship to society
that the dream bears to mental life. . . .
Like art, the dream mediates between order
and chaos. So, it is half chaos. That is why
it is not comprehensible. It is a vision, not
a fully fledged articulated production.
Those who actualize those half-born visions
into artistic productions are those who begin
to transform what we do not understand into
what we can at least start to see.”
— A book published on March 2, 2021:
Beyond Order , by Jordan Peterson
The inarticulate, in this case, is Rosalind Krauss:
A “raid on the inarticulate” published in Notices of the
American Mathematical Society in the February 1979 issue —
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Friday, February 26, 2021
Non-Chaos Non-Magic
For fans of “WandaVision” —
“1978 was perhaps the seminal year in the origin of chaos magic. . . .”
— Wikipedia article on Chaos Magic
Non-Chaos Non-Magic from Halloween 1978 —
Related material —
A doctoral student of a different Peter Cameron —
( Not to be confused with The Tin Man’s Hat. )
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Thursday, August 15, 2019
On Steiner Quadruple Systems of Order 16
An image from a Log24 post of March 5, 2019 —
The following paragraph from the above image remains unchanged
as of this morning at Wikipedia:
"A 3-(16,4,1) block design has 140 blocks of size 4 on 16 points,
such that each triplet of points is covered exactly once. Pick any
single point, take only the 35 blocks containing that point, and
delete that point. The 35 blocks of size 3 that remain comprise
a PG(3,2) on the 15 remaining points."
Exercise —
Prove or disprove the above assertion about a general "3-(16,4,1)
block design," a structure also known as a Steiner quadruple system
(as I pointed out in the March 5 post).
Relevant literature —
A paper from Helsinki in 2005* says there are more than a million
3-(16,4,1) block designs, of which only one has an automorphism
group of order 322,560. This is the affine 4-space over GF(2),
from which PG(3,2) can be derived using the well-known process
from finite geometry described in the above Wikipedia paragraph.
* "The Steiner quadruple systems of order 16," by Kaski et al.,
Journal of Combinatorial Theory Series A Volume 113, Issue 8,
November 2006, pages 1764-1770.
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Wednesday, March 6, 2019
The Relativity Problem and Burkard Polster
|
From some 1949 remarks of Weyl— "The relativity problem is one of central significance throughout geometry and algebra and has been recognized as such by the mathematicians at an early time." — Hermann Weyl, "Relativity Theory as a Stimulus in Mathematical Research," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society , Vol. 93, No. 7, Theory of Relativity in Contemporary Science: Papers Read at the Celebration of the Seventieth Birthday of Professor Albert Einstein in Princeton, March 19, 1949 (Dec. 30, 1949), pp. 535-541 Weyl in 1946—: "This is the relativity problem: to fix objectively a class of equivalent coordinatizations and to ascertain the group of transformations S mediating between them." — Hermann Weyl, The Classical Groups , Princeton University Press, 1946, p. 16 |
For some context, see Relativity Problem in this journal.
In the case of PG(3,2), there is a choice of geometric models
to be coordinatized: two such models are the traditional
tetrahedral model long promoted by Burkard Polster, and
the square model of Steven H. Cullinane.
The above Wikipedia section tacitly (and unfairly) assumes that
the model being coordinatized is the tetrahedral model. For
coordinatization of the square model, see (for instance) the webpage
Finite Relativity.
For comparison of the two models, see a figure posted here on
May 21, 2014 —
Labeling the Tetrahedral Model (Click to enlarge) —
"Citation needed" —
The anonymous characters who often update the PG(3,2) Wikipedia article
probably would not consider my post of 2014, titled "The Tetrahedral
Model of PG(3,2)," a "reliable source."
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Friday, March 1, 2019
Wikipedia Scholarship (Continued)
This post continues a post from yesterday on the square model of
PG(3,2) that apparently first appeared (presented as such*) in . . .
Cullinane, "Symmetry invariance in a diamond ring,"
Notices of the AMS , pp. A193-194, Feb. 1979.
Yesterday's Wikipedia presentation of the square model was today
revised by yet another anonymous author —
Revision history accounting for the above change from yesterday —
The jargon "rm OR" means "remove original research."
The added verbiage about block designs is a smokescreen having
nothing to do with the subject, which is square representation
of the 35 points and lines.
* The 35 squares, each consisting of four 4-element subsets, appeared earlier
in the Miracle Octad Generator (MOG) of R. T. Curtis (published in 1976).
They were not at that time presented as constituting a finite geometry,
either affine (AG(4,2)) or projective (PG(3,2)).
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Thursday, February 28, 2019
Wikipedia Scholarship
Besides omitting the name Cullinane, the anonymous Wikipedia author
also omitted the step of representing the hypercube by a 4×4 array —
an array called in this journal a Galois tesseract.
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Sunday, June 8, 2014
Vide
"The relevance of a geometric theorem is determined by what the theorem
tells us about space, and not by the eventual difficulty of the proof."
— Gian-Carlo Rota discussing the theorem of Desargues
What space tells us about the theorem :
In the simplest case of a projective space (as opposed to a plane ),
there are 15 points and 35 lines: 15 Göpel lines and 20 Rosenhain lines.*
The theorem of Desargues in this simplest case is essentially a symmetry
within the set of 20 Rosenhain lines. The symmetry, a reflection
about the main diagonal in the square model of this space, interchanges
10 horizontally oriented (row-based) lines with 10 corresponding
vertically oriented (column-based) lines.
Vide Classical Geometry in Light of Galois Geometry.
* Update of June 9: For a more traditional nomenclature, see (for instance)
R. Shaw, 1995. The "simplest case" link above was added to point out that
the two types of lines named are derived from a natural symplectic polarity
in the space. The square model of the space, apparently first described in
notes written in October and December, 1978, makes this polarity clearly visible:
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Friday, January 17, 2014
The 4×4 Relativity Problem
The sixteen-dot square array in yesterday’s noon post suggests
the following remarks.
“This is the relativity problem: to fix objectively a class of
equivalent coordinatizations and to ascertain the group of
transformations S mediating between them.”
— Hermann Weyl, The Classical Groups ,
Princeton University Press, 1946, p. 16
The Galois tesseract appeared in an early form in the journal
Computer Graphics and Art , Vol. 2, No. 1, February 1977—
The 1977 matrix Q is echoed in the following from 2002—
A different representation of Cullinane’s 1977 square model of the
16-point affine geometry over the two-element Galois field GF(2)
is supplied by Conway and Sloane in Sphere Packings, Lattices and Groups
(first published in 1988) :
Here a, b, c, d are basis vectors in the vector 4-space over GF(2).
(For a 1979 version of this vector space, see AMS Abstract 79T-A37.)
See also a 2011 publication of the Mathematical Association of America —
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Saturday, August 17, 2013
Up-to-Date Geometry
The following excerpt from a January 20, 2013, preprint shows that
a Galois-geometry version of the large Desargues 154203 configuration,
although based on the nineteenth-century work of Galois* and of Fano,**
may at times have twenty-first-century applications.
Atkinson's paper does not use the square model of PG(3,2), which later
in 2013 provided a natural view of the large Desargues 154203 configuration.
See my own Classical Geometry in Light of Galois Geometry. Atkinson's
"subset of 20 lines" corresponds to 20 of the 80 Rosenhain tetrads
mentioned in that later article and pictured within 4×4 squares in Hudson's
1905 classic Kummer's Quartic Surface.
* E. Galois, definition of finite fields in "Sur la Théorie des Nombres,"
Bulletin des Sciences Mathématiques de M. Férussac,
Vol. 13, 1830, pp. 428-435.
** G. Fano, definition of PG(3,2) in "Sui Postulati Fondamentali…,"
Giornale di Matematiche, Vol. 30, 1892, pp. 106-132.
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Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Baker on Configurations
The geometry posts of Sunday and Monday have been
placed in finitegeometry.org as
Classical Geometry in Light of Galois Geometry.
Some background:
See Baker, Principles of Geometry , Vol. II, Note I
(pp. 212-218)—
On Certain Elementary Configurations, and
on the Complete Figure for Pappus's Theorem
and Vol. II, Note II (pp. 219-236)—
On the Hexagrammum Mysticum of Pascal.
Monday's elucidation of Baker's Desargues-theorem figure
treats the figure as a 154203 configuration (15 points,
4 lines on each, and 20 lines, 3 points on each).
Such a treatment is by no means new. See Baker's notes
referred to above, and
"The Complete Pascal Figure Graphically Presented,"
a webpage by J. Chris Fisher and Norma Fuller.
What is new in the Monday Desargues post is the graphic
presentation of Baker's frontispiece figure using Galois geometry :
specifically, the diamond theorem square model of PG(3,2).
See also Cremona's kernel, or nocciolo :
Baker on Cremona's approach to Pascal—
"forming, in Cremona's phrase, the nocciolo of the whole."
A related nocciolo :
Click on the nocciolo for some
geometric background.
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Monday, November 5, 2012
Sitting Specially
Some webpages at finitegeometry.org discuss
group actions on Sylvester’s duads and synthemes.
Those pages are based on the square model of
PG(3,2) described in the 1980’s by Steven H. Cullinane.
A rival tetrahedral model of PG(3,2) was described
in the 1990’s by Burkard Polster.
Polster’s tetrahedral model appears, notably, in
a Mathematics Magazine article from April 2009—
Click for a pdf of the article.
Related material:
“The Religion of Cubism” (May 9, 2003) and “Art and Lies”
(Nov. 16, 2008).
This post was suggested by following the link in yesterday’s
Sunday School post to High White Noon, and the link from
there to A Study in Art Education, which mentions the date of
Rudolf Arnheim‘s death, June 9, 2007. This journal
on that date—
The Fink-Guy article was announced in a Mathematical
Association of America newsletter dated April 15, 2009.
Those who prefer narrative to mathematics may consult
a Log24 post from a few days earlier, “Where Entertainment is God”
(April 12, 2009), and, for some backstory, The Judas Seat
(February 16, 2007).
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Monday, July 16, 2012
Mapping Problem continued
Another approach to the square-to-triangle
mapping problem (see also previous post)—
For the square model referred to in the above picture, see (for instance)
- Picturing the Smallest Projective 3-Space,
- The Relativity Problem in Finite Geometry, and
- Symmetry of Walsh Functions.
Coordinates for the 16 points in the triangular arrays
of the corresponding affine space may be deduced
from the patterns in the projective-hyperplanes array above.
This should solve the inverse problem of mapping,
in a natural way, the triangular array of 16 points
to the square array of 16 points.
Update of 9:35 AM ET July 16, 2012:
Note that the square model's 15 hyperplanes S
and the triangular model's 15 hyperplanes T —
— share the following vector-space structure —
| 0 | c | d | c + d |
| a | a + c | a + d | a + c + d |
| b | b + c | b + d | b + c + d |
| a + b | a + b + c | a + b + d | a + b + c + d |
(This vector-space a b c d diagram is from
Chapter 11 of Sphere Packings, Lattices
and Groups , by John Horton Conway and
N. J. A. Sloane, first published by Springer
in 1988.)
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Sunday, April 25, 2004
Sunday April 25, 2004
Small World
Added a note to 4×4 Geometry:
The 4×4 square model 
lets us visualize the projective space PG(3,2) as well as the affine space AG(4,2). For tetrahedral and circular models of PG(3,2), see the work of Burkard Polster. The following is from an advertisement of a talk by Polster on PG(3,2).
|
The Smallest Perfect Universe “After a short introduction to finite geometries, I’ll take you on a… guided tour of the smallest perfect universe — a complex universe of breathtaking abstract beauty, consisting of only 15 points, 35 lines and 15 planes — a space whose overall design incorporates and improves many of the standard features of the three-dimensional Euclidean space we live in…. Among mathematicians our perfect universe is known as — Burkard Polster, May 2001 |
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