For James Joyce, courtesy of Guillermo del Toro.
I prefer the flower window illustrated here
on December 29, 2025 —

For James Joyce, courtesy of Guillermo del Toro.
I prefer the flower window illustrated here
on December 29, 2025 —

For the bricks of the title, see other posts tagged Brick Space.
For some cubes* and flowers, see below.
Combining features of the above two images, one might picture the 24
cells of the 4×6 array underlying the Curtis Miracle Octad Generator
(MOG) as each containing an eightfold cube, pictured as above with seven
of its subcubes showing and an eighth subcube hidden behind them.
The seven visible subcubes may be colored, as in the Curtis image of
the Klein map, with seven distinct colors… corresponding to the seven
edge-colors used in the Curtis-Klein map. Each of the seven visible
subcubes in a cell may also be labeled, on its visible faces, with a symbol
denoting one of the 24 points of the projective line over GF(23), just as the
faces in the Curtis-Klein map are labeled. The hidden subcube in each cell
may be regarded as also so labeled, by the MOG label of the cell's position.
There is then enough information in the array's eightfold cubes' colors and
labels to construct the seven generating permutations of M24 described by
Curtis, and the 24 array cells may be regarded as now containing 24 distinct
entities — which perhaps might be called "octoids."
Those desiring a more decorative approach may replace the 24 labeled cubes
with 24 labeled "flowers." Each flower — like the map's symmetric seven
"petals" and the central "infinity heptagon" they surround — forms an octad.
Related Illustrations . . .
* See as well posts tagged Mathieu Cube . . .
Related material —
The 56 triangles of the eightfold cube . . .
Image from Christmas Day 2005.
Post last revised: December 30, 2025 @ 21:30 E.S.T.
The former book partly inspired work leading to the latter abstract.
The "Loeb Fellowship in advanced environmental studies"
is not named for Arthur L. Loeb . . .
Related reading from this journal —
Posts now tagged Arthur Lee Loeb.
Related art from this journal —
The setting for the Sidney Lumet film "Deathtrap" (1982)
In memory of a meeting of the Philomorphs at Sever Hall,
Harvard University, in 1978 . . .
Loeb died on July 19, 2002. Vide this journal on the next day.
* The purely mathematical kind —
“By far the most important structure in design theory
is the Steiner system S(5, 8, 24).”
— “Block Designs,” by Andries E. Brouwer
(Ch. 14 (pp. 693-746) of Handbook of Combinatorics,
Vol. I, MIT Press, 1995, edited by Ronald L. Graham,
Martin Grötschel, and László Lovász, Section 16 (p. 716))
A passage accessed via the new URL Starbrick.art* —
Thursday, February 25, 2021
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A related cultural note suggested by the New York Times obituary today
of fashion designer Mary McFadden, who reportedly died yesterday
(a Friday the Thirteenth) and is described by the Times as a late-life
partner of "eightfold-way" physicist Murray Gell-Mann —
* A reference to the 2-column 4-row matrix (a "brick") that underlies
the patterns in the Miracle Octad Generator of R. T. Curtis. The only
connection of this eight-part matrix to Gell-Mann's "Eightfold Way"
that I know of is simply the number 8 itself.
"Was ist Raum, wie können wir ihn
erfassen und gestalten?"
The Theory and
Organization of the
Bauhaus (1923)
A relevant illustration:
At math.stackexchange.com on March 1-12, 2013:
“Is there a geometric realization of the Quaternion group?” —
The above illustration, though neatly drawn, appeared under the
cloak of anonymity. No source was given for the illustrated group actions.
Possibly they stem from my Log24 posts or notes such as the Jan. 4, 2012,
note on quaternion actions at finitegeometry.org/sc (hence ultimately
from my note “GL(2,3) actions on a cube” of April 5, 1985).
These references will not appeal to those who enjoy modernism as a religion.
(For such a view, see Rosalind Krauss on grids and another writer's remarks
on the religion's 100th anniversary this year.)
Some related nihilist philosophy from Cormac McCarthy —
"Forms turning in a nameless void."
The 'harvard gsd' in the link button below is the Graduate School of Design.
Related material — "News of the World" in this journal.
Midrash from Philip Pullman . . .
"The 1929 Einstein-Carmichael Expedition"
I prefer the 1929 Emch-Carmichael expedition —
This is from . . .
“By far the most important structure in design theory
is the Steiner system S(5, 8, 24).”
— “Block Designs,” by Andries E. Brouwer
(Ch. 14 (pp. 693-746) of Handbook of Combinatorics,
Vol. I, MIT Press, 1995, edited by Ronald L. Graham,
Martin Grötschel, and László Lovász, Section 16 (p. 716))
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) . . .
Related tune suggested yesterday by Peter J. Cameron —
The Beatles, “I Me Mine,” from the “Let It Be” album.

Related imagery —

Clue
Here is a midrash on “desmic,” a term derived from the Greek desmé
( δέσμη: bundle, sheaf , or, in the mathematical sense, pencil —
French faisceau ), which is related to the term desmos , bond …
(The term “desmic,” as noted earlier, is relevant to the structure of
Heidegger’s Sternwürfel .)
“Gadzooks, I’ve done it again!” — Sherlock Hemlock
From posts tagged “The Empty Quarter” —
Related tune suggested today by Peter J. Cameron —
The Beatles, “I Me Mine,” from the “Let It Be” album.
That album, and an image from Log24 on Feb. 23 —

Epigraph from Ch. 4 of Design Theory , Vol. I:
"Es is eine alte Geschichte,
doch bleibt sie immer neu "
—Heine (Lyrisches Intermezzo XXXIX)
This epigraph was quoted here earlier on
the morning of September 1, 2011.
On a recently deceased professor emeritus of architecture
at Princeton —
“… Maxwell ‘established the school as a principal
center of design research, history and theory.’ ”
“This is not the Maxwell you’re looking for.”

“Design is how it works.” — Steven Jobs (See Symmetry and Design.)
“By far the most important structure in design theory is the Steiner system S(5, 8, 24).”
— “Block Designs,” by Andries E. Brouwer

The name Carmichael is not to be found in Booher’s thesis. A book he does cite for the history of S(5,8,24) gives the date of Carmichael’s construction of this design as 1937. It should be dated 1931, as the following quotation shows—
From Log24 on Feb. 20, 2010—
“The linear fractional group modulo 23 of order 24•23•11 is often represented as a doubly transitive group of degree 24 on the symbols ∞, 0, 1, 2,…, 22. This transitive group contains a subgroup of order 8 each element of which transforms into itself the set ∞, 0, 1, 3, 12, 15, 21, 22 of eight elements, while the whole group transforms this set into 3•23•11 sets of eight each. This configuration of octuples has the remarkable property that any given set of five of the 24 symbols occurs in one and just one of these octuples. The largest permutation group Γ on the 24 symbols, each element of which leaves this configuration invariant, is a five-fold transitive group of degree 24 and order 24•23•22•21•20•48. This is the Mathieu group of degree 24.”
– R. D. Carmichael, “Tactical Configurations of Rank Two,” in American Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 53, No. 1 (Jan., 1931), pp. 217-240
Epigraph from Ch. 4 of Design Theory , Vol. I:
“Es is eine alte Geschichte,
doch bleibt sie immer neu ”
—Heine (Lyrisches Intermezzo XXXIX)
See also “Do you like apples?“
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"Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail." — Henry David Thoreau, Walden
This quotation is the epigraph to |
From Peter J. Cameron's review notes for
his new course in group theory—
From Log24 on June 24—
Geometry Simplified

(an affine space with subsquares as points
and sets of subsquares as hyperplanes)

(a projective space with, as points, sets
of line segments that separate subsquares)
Exercise—
Show that the above geometry is a model
for the algebra discussed by Cameron.
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