If anyone has any interest in geometry or mathematics in general, please give me any feedback necessary on the proof I posted about 1/4 down the page.

1. In right angled-triangles the square on the side subtending the right angle is equal to the squares on the sides containing the right angle: a^2+b^2=c^2 -Euclid
2. A square is a quadrilateral with 4 equal sides and 4 subtending 90 degree angles.
3. A perfect square is analogous to the perfect circle.
4. The diagonal of a square is the same length as the hypotenuses of its constituent like triangles.
5. The diagonal of a 1 x 1 square is a radical; the length of the hypotenuse is Root 2.

• 1. The Pythagoreans murdered one of their own members for revealing the existence of Root 2 and the infinite  set of  radical numbers.

6. The 3rd dimensional analog to the square is the cube.
7. The way to translate Pythagoreans Theorem into 3 spatial dimensions is by adding the square of a third variable to the equation so it now becomes: a^2+b^2+c^2 = d^2. Where “d” is equal to the length of the diagonal plane through the cube.
8. The radial for determining the length of the diagonal plane through any cube is Root 3.
9. The area of the bisecting plane through a cube will always be “a” Root 3
10. The magnitude of “a” is the integer value of the length of its dimensions.
11. The number of variables when translating Pythagoreans Theorem into higher spatial dimensions increases per the Fibonacci Number [F(n)] sequence not the progression of the Natural set of Integers
12. F(n) recur with regularity in the natural world: Daisy Petals, Konk Shells, Animal Population growth, Spiral Galaxies,etc.
13. Zero is a creation of Homo sapiens; it does not occur in Nature therefore it is unnatural to use as the base of the sequence. It is not considered in the cardinality of the integers in the series.

• 1. The Golden Ratio Root 1 + root 5/2 can be derived from the F(N)As the F[N] increases the ratio between two  successive members is Root5/2

• 2. 1,1,2,3 are the first four integers now in the sequence. The First Cardinal (1), I define as “unextended space”. Unextended space is necessitated by extended space, therefore the first 1 is indicative of space without extension and infinite time (a black hole).

• 1. If the F(n) is as fundamental as it seems and I claim then it can describe the history of the universe with its constituent integers.
• 1. Existence is more perfect than non-existence.
• 2. If something exists its negation is non-existence
• 3. Existence and Non-Existence leads to the conclusion that there is more than one state of existence. Adding these states begets the integer 2. The nothingness that zero denotes/connotes is actually a state, a state of non-existence derived from the state of existence, We do not need the zero, it just makes things a hell of a lot easier.
• 4. Adding the former 1 state of existence with the now possible 2 states of existence leads to 3.
• 5. The sum of 2 +3 = 5
• 6. Reality, Nature, God whatever you chose to call it existed and from this the F(n) began as well as prime numbers, even, odds, squares.Homo sapiens’ “God” is defined by the numbers reached when we as scientists mathematically describe our collective reality and its substance correctly. Our lives are played out on a stage or on a infintely large field or pitch with its laws derived from basic arithmetical operations and operators F(N), P(n), Pi, Infinity. When we reach the extremes of human comprehension,( eg quantum probability of location and existence, i, wave/particle duality) We should be pensive to place epistemic value we assign to conclusions from arguments and theories whose principal or even tertiary mission is to gain a more robust picture of the Natural World with these numbers, zero included, as operators
• 7. We invented the place holder integers to help describe and fill in the gaps of the F(n) based Universe
• 8. The two ones subsume each other and the second Cardinal 1 is now the starting point of the sequence.
• 9. The second Fibonacci identity must be changed but it will still hold if 2 is the difference instead of 1

14. Solutions which yield black hole singularities to the Einstein Field Equations are appropriate ways to consider the paradoxical notion of unextended space and infinite time.
15. The next three Cardinal Integers (1,2,3) represent our current Three Spatial dimensions.

• 1. “The new F(4) unlocks our key to a fourth and possibly fifth spatial dimension.
• 2. Time is a dimension, and Einstein figured correctly that it can interact with matter, however we have yet to consider life’s effect on and interaction with time. But this paper is concerned with spatial dimensions. I will deal with “time” in subsequent papers.
• 3. We must add two more coordinates from our Three Dimensional Solutions in order to account for the axis of rotation of our Universe. Our Universe is orbiting relative to 4th /5th dimensional space.

16. Photon Entanglement can be reconciled with logic if we acknowledge the existence of a connection between photons in hyperspace.
17. The centrifugal force and angular momentum of our spinning Universe cause gravity.
18. This rotation accounts for the Gravitational Constant.
19. The equation: a^2+b^2+c^2+d^2+e^2=f^2 yields Root 5 as its radical constant. This Gives us the a^2 Root 5 is the volume of the solid angle through the hypercube.
20. The diagonal of a square is the counterpart to the diameter of a circle. Half the diameter is the radius of a circle, and half of the length of the diagonal of the square is analogous to the radius of a circle.
21. Divide the diameter/diagonal by two in order to find the radius and its respective counterpart in the square.
22. Apply this to the tesseract, or four dimensional cube, or hypercube.
23. Half of the length of the solid angle is Root 5/2, which is the Golden Ratio, another mysterious recurrent numerical constant in Nature.
24. As the Fibonacci Sequence converges, the ratio between two consecutive F(n) becomes the Golden Ratio.
25. The Golden Ratio is based on two dimensional geometry just as pi and root2
26. Topology is the study of curved surfaces and their mathematical description
27. In topology, there is no such thing as a cube; A sphere is created with six equal squares, but there are no angles.
1. Root 5/2 is the constant in determining the length of the radius in a hypersphere/hypercube in 4 dimensions. Its magnitude is found in the same way as in any other spatial dimension as “n Root 5/2″

In conclusion, the above proof theoretically introduces new constants into higher dimensional geometry which allow for a revision of our picture of reality. Hyperspace is real and we are orbiting in it. Could the ether make a come back?` Our challenge now is to put to use our new epistemic paradigm for research and science.

Dr Slaggleberry – The Slagg Factory
Released: October 12, 2009
Label: Crash Records

Have you heard the one about Meshuggah and Psyopus walking into a bar? No? Really? OK, please allow me to introduce Dr Slaggleberry instead then. Now, I know what you’re thinking- “What the hell is he talking about?”. Well, presenting The Slagg Factory, the musical interpretation of a wonderfully crafted question mark. So, back to that introduction. Dr Slaggleberry, amongst many things, are a three piece from Oxford and its surrounding areas. With their upcoming release, The Slagg Factory, the audience are treated to as many polyrhythmic structures that could possibly shaken a stick at (only on the off-beats mind), with overlaying guitar riffs a plenty that may have been arranged with the assistance of a Casio calculator.

Call it math metal, experimental metal, or even the ever ridiculous heading of avant-garde metal, Dr Slaggleberry (still heart-warming after the third time of writing) are capable of producing heavy as hell metal.

The five instrumental tracks of The Slagg Factory appear to be enriched with Meshuggah influenced riff based writing. The snarling stop-start rhythms that fans of the respective genre would have become accustomed to are in place and ever so cleverly synced with the snare driven drum beats. However, and this is where Dr Slaggleberry earn their evident accomplished reputation, the tracks are not all bludgeoning metal, for varying amounts of melody is catered for by the second guitar. In track 3, entitled 8 4 5, Dr Slaggleberry have composed an intricate two minute segment, with tapped notes rich in delay that soon explode into chaotic and syncopated riffing. Ooh yes, this is music composed with the Churchill nodding Dog in mind.

With The Slagg Factory, Dr Slaggleberry have produced an E.P that is well worth risking the possible side effects of a Google search for. If you already appreciate British bands such as Fell Silent, Tesseract, and No Made Sense then these guys should not disappoint.

In her popular book, A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle introduced me to a tesseract as a way of traveling. The idea is that the shortest route between point A and point B is not a straight line, but would be to bring points A and B together, eliminating the distance between them entirely. This tesseract creates a wrinkle in time as you bypass the journey.

Throughout the course of my life, I’ve spent much time dreaming of tessering – especially as my friends seem to be farther and farther away from me. The thought of tessering is so beautiful and romantic.

I was staring at the blank box to type a new post, trying to figure out what to write about, and went to YouTube to find some music to listen to. As Adam Young started singing and I closed my eyes to think, I was suddenly no longer in California. It was night, driving to camp, and Graham had just excitedly put his new Owl City CD in the CD player. and just like that, I was suddenly in the car with Deryn, Mejee, and an entire summer’s worth of stuff. Almost immediately, it was 3 in the morning and I was merging onto I-5 South off of 39th St, about to begin my journey down here.

When I opened my eyes, I realized that I had tessered. Somehow, I had transcended time and space though I had never left. That was just the result of one song (Hello Seattle). There are countless other songs that take me other places; John Mayer’s Love Song for No One takes me back to the Philippines, laying in the only air conditioned room in our house. Jamie Cullum’s cover of Frontin’ takes me to the Starbucks by the Shari’s on Mill Plain and tastes like a caramel frappuccino. Matt Nathanson’s When Everything Meant Everything CD puts me on the road with Mei-Ling, Seattle-bound from Spokane.

This could go on forever. But you get the point.

Life has a soundtrack, but sometimes it’s so obvious that we miss it.

A ship hangs in the void where whole universes smear into each other, an interlude in an infinite regression of stories, in which our heroes Perfesser Prof (the brains of the operation!), Probability Pop the Power Princess (the brawn!), and Archetype Amigo (uh… comedic relief?) await their next adventure!

A ship pops into existence, echoes rippling into the chaosphere. It signals itself as the Mandelbrot This, Bitches!

Prof: They’re requesting communication.

The screen flickers to life, showing an Archetype Amigo… changed. Battle scars raked his already unhandsome features, an eye rolling pale grey in its socket shifting the wires that run from his retina to a hissing—hmm, steam-powered, remarks Perfesser Prof— camera system grafted scarry-like on his cranium,

Archetype Amigo: Wow. This must be me, a badass from another reality.

Archetype Amigo 2: No. This is you from the future.

Probability Pop: (giggles)

Archetype Amigo: (Jaw crashes to ground)

Archetype Amigo 2: In fact, a future very rapidly present. It looks like I was too late to warn you. Shoulda known that my presence would blindside you to the true threat—

A salvo of lasers from a mysterious direction attacks the Prof’s ship! The hull is rent asunder and AA is flung akimbo into the cold claws of pure vacuum! The prof and Probability Pop hang on for dear life! The Mandelbrot This, Bitches! swoops in, tessellating space!

As the hull repairs itself,

Probability Pop: Wow. That happened really quickly. I guess it’s true that nobody can hear you scream in space.

Meanwhile, on the Mandelbrot This, Bitches! the past and the future collide when Archetype Amigo snaps awake with the almost instant vertical orientation of his once prone torso, thus causing his face to violently coincide against that of the future Archetype Amigo’s face. Archetype Amigo Present screams through his bleeding face and the Future Archetype Amigo gestures with his robotic arm and remarks to himself, “Shoulda known not to stand that close. That’s how I, uh, you lost the eye and got the scars.”

Upon seeing the hydraulics and electronic cabling bulging in place of skeleton and muscle on his doppelganger’s arm, Archetype Amigo’s screaming increases a decibel. He stops long enough to catch his breath and query, “H-how? Do I dare ask when that happened?”

“The way it went,” the doppelganger sighs, “is right after you asked that question, I somehow tripped and ripped your arm off into an airlock in some freak accident which caused it to be ejected into space, lost forever… yeah, like that, I’m really sorry!”

Archetype Amigo’s hand has abandoned his howling face—the other having entirely absconded with most of the limb attached—to fly to his gushing stump. “Your leg! W-w—,” he bleats. The Future Archetype Amigo looks down at the bellows powered unicycle attached to where the right leg used to be, looking very much like a steampunk pirate. His grey eye squawks. The doppelganger chins his hand and ponders for a moment before finally saying, “If memory serves me, I accidentally removed the leg as I was working on fixing your arm…”

“No! No! Was I even injured before you picked me up? Who shot at us?” Archetype Amigo, in the throes of panic, stumbles about in the cramped cockpit bristling with controls and falls right over the crèche onto the console, to inadvertently trigger an array of switches and buttons.

“What have you done?!” The doppelganger screams, the ship winking out of Time into the past, remaining only long enough to release a salvo of erratic laser fire onto the unsuspecting Prof’s ship. Suddenly back in the present, Archetype Amigo is still flailing about, screaming, “Somebody save me! Perfesser! Princess Pop!  Save me from myself!”

“Don’t worry,” the Future Archetype Amigo says with a set and determined face, “I’m going to save you! I’ll fix it all!”

“Noooo!”

Not too long into the future, Archetype Amigo returns to the Prof’s ship and sulks past the jaw-shattering astonishment of his fellow Fractal Rangers. “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” he grumbles, clumsily making for his quarters on an unicycle, where he finds an email offering the sale of a ship, Mandelbrot This, Bitches! I can fix this, he thinks. I can!

Perfesser Prof shakes his head and Probability Pop shrugs, turning to the controls. “Full fractal ahead,” Perfesser Prof says, and Pop throws a switch, the fractal drive eschers a downward drift. Under its tessellating exhaust is lodged something that looks suspiciously like a severed arm…

Sylosis bring their intrepid brand of awesome metal to the Camden Underworld on Saturday 8th August.

They will be joined at the venue by the cream of the UK underground, as well as the It Prevails from the US. Unfortunately Tesseract pulled out due to their singer leaving and them working on a new album with a mystery replacement, but the bill still boasts the likes of Herfordshire’s heavy yet bouncy The Eyes of a Traitor, Scots hardcore troupe Azriel and Essex screamers Rinoa.

The event is all ages and tickets are available on the door. It runs from 2 til 10.30 and tickets cost £14. It’s in the same venue at the same start time that the all ages club Subverse used to be in back in the day. Here’s hoping that it will attract a somewhat older crowd than that used to.

Either way, Squatney Steel will be there covering the event and letting you know what it was like. Provided the hysterical predictions about every other person catching swine flu in August don’t come true that is.

For more info see: http://www.myspace.com/metalfestuk or search for Metalfest on Facebook.

I don’t think anyone will ever be able to explain our universe better than Carl Sagan…

Those meddling mathematicians
continue to blow my mind
I cannot figure it out, perhaps
I am a fraction blind.
Sculpting the fourth dimension
I can see the fatal attraction
as the artist becomes magician
via mathematical abstraction.
The physicists equations
described our physical reality
in only three dimensions
so how can you see
four dimensional objects fly
through time and space?
I am trapped in a hypercube*
in a very dark place.

D.Hinson

L’Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time.

New York, New York. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1962. 211p.

Teenager Meg Murray and her whiz-kid five year old brother, Charles Wallace, along with Meg’s older friend Calvin, set off on a whirlwind journey with mystical guides Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, to try to rescue Meg’s father, a government scientist, who is missing somewhere in outer space.  Their guides lead them on a dangerous journey that will not only save their father, but millions of beings on thousands of planets, as the tilt of good versus evil plays out in a game of ultimate proportions.  Ultimately the children locate and free Mr. Murray.  Meg, however, must defeat the evil entity IT.  She is able to outsmart this entity by ascertaining IT can’t understand the concept of love.  Love is the one thing that cannot be controlled, dictated, or forced.  By showing her heartfelt affection towards Charles Wallace, she cripples IT’s ability to function and all the beings that were controlled by IT are now free.

L’Engle opened new worlds to me the first time I read this when I was in middle school and it was delightful to re-read a childhood favorite.  This is a great example of a work to just get your feet wet, science-fiction wise.  New planets and unusual beings were described; consequently I imagined amazing creatures in bizarre places.  I remember loving the fact that Meg was the heroine despite the fact she wasn’t always the brainiest or the most patient; she even wore glasses!  Mrs. Which’s slurred speech was somewhat distracting and I didn’t completely understand the definition of a tesseract, either, but I got the overall gist of it.  I think teens will like it, too.

4Q, 4Q, M J S

I think teens 13 years and older will thoroughly enjoy reading this book.

The cover definitely needs work to appeal to a teen audience – it looks very dated and old fashioned.  Some of the newer released paperback covers are a little bit better, but it seems like it is hard to capture the essence of this book in a bookjacket.  I think it would be much better if it had the type of a cover when you turn it one way you see one thing, and when you slightly turn it another way, another image appears.  That type of cover might convey the time travel aspect.  One moment you are here, the next you are millions of miles away on another world.  That’s my two cents, anyways!

Tags:

• 1998 Margaret A. Edwards Winner – Madeleine L’Engle
• Science fiction
• Time travel
• Tesseract
• Good versus evil

the wonderful folks over at the laundromatinee, offer up cincinnati’s pomegranates as their latest session. i’d give my blurb here on the band’s lively brand of layered, atmospherc indie-pop, but you can read more on the band and catch two additonal videos over at the laundromatinee.

everybody, come outside is out now.

pomegranates on myspace

download:

pomegrantes – corriander

- sunbear

We’ve all had those embarrassing family moments, whether it’s your mom showing off pictures of you when you were first toilet-training or your dad belting old rock bands from the 70’s. And, if you think you’re alone, you’re not. This is one of the reasons why it’s so much fun to write about families… However, it can get very tedious.

This is one of the reasons why my main character has no parents. Angels and demons are created by the ruler of their realm, kind of like asexual reproduction. Many main characters of books are orphans, or missing their parents. Take Harry Potter, for example. His parents were killed by Voldemort. And Seph McCauley (The Wizard Heir), who has no idea who his father is until the end of the book. And young Percy Jackson, who had no idea that his father was the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon. Orphans are popular in fantasy, probably because then you don’t have to write about their families.

But don’t forget to give them reactions to their parents’ deaths/disapearances/neglecting them. I would be seriously miffed if my parents didn’t care about me (as is the case in the beginning of The Lightning Thief and The Wizard Heir). And if they were dead? That’s the kind of thing I don’t like to think about.

And then there’s the cases where family is important (just about every Disney movie, and the Time Quartet by Madeleine L’Engle). Meg Murry from A Wrinkle in Time fame has a great interest in her family. Her father disappeared years ago from experimenting with the tesseract (BTW, I love that line: “And by the way, there is such thing as a tesseract.”). In fact, the entire Quartet (including An Acceptable Time, which I have yet to read). The first two books’ protagonist is Meg, the third is Charles Wallace, the fourth are the twins, and then the fifth is Polly, Meg’s daughter (I believe).

Please don’t give the me the cliched-Disney theme: “Family is the most important thing in the universe.” I saw enough of that when I was younger. So don’t repeat it!

Also, does the main character have siblings? If he/she does, then please don’t try to attempt a perfect relationship between them, especially if you yourself are an only child. It’s not realistic (as far as my case goes; I have one younger brother).

One more thing: if you’re going to kill someone’s parents off, do it in style. Don’t make it a car crash (we all know that’s a lie, anyway). Make it something like, “My parents died when they were murdered by an enraged, gallivanting unicorn by the fine name of Calvin.” Except less glamorous.

With gas prices as they are, I am considering getting a motorcycle endorsement and getting along on a hog. As such, I’ve been surfing on motor-bikes and the such and here’s some gems from the internet.

Sumo

This video is from 3 years ago: why the hell aren’t I sticking to lightposts with my dual-magnetic engine yet?

Suzuki Biplane

Do you see how sleek and shiny this is! More sleek! More Shiny! Get this prototype on the road damn it!

Yamaha Tesseract

Hybrid four-wheel motorcycle? I think I need a new pair o’ shorts.

Toyota i-Real

At a whopping 3-18 mph, this concept from Toyota is sure to give the Segway a run for its money.

Yamaha Deus Ex Machina – WEARABLE MOTORCYCLE!

Bugger the rest – someone who loves me get me this for my birthday!

A short post today but I think I want to start slowly talking about things I love, well, more things I love than I usually talk about, I guess you could say. But today I’m going to start with one of the movies I’m really looking forward to coming out this year. In fact, it’s probably the only other movie that I’m really looking forward to coming out this year…

Of course I’m talking about Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are. I think Videogum summed up the initial appeal of this movie (based on it’s awesome trailer) perfectly:

This thing seriously looks scientifically designed to fuck up the hipsters’ shit. Do the math. Spike Jonze + Arcade Fire + Nostalgia + Magic + Monsters + Divorced Moms + Snowballs + Scribble Font + Shouting Off a Cliff.

For real. Sendak’s book was one of my absolute favorites growing up, another being Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time, which I try to reread at least once a year, but I don’t just want to mention the book/movie today. What I actually wanted to direct your attention to was the blog for the film, We Love You So.

It’s a fascinating collection of bits about the film along with nods towards it’s influences and like-minded pieces of wonderfulness. I spent a delightful hour or so just browsing through all the entries on there the other night and I’d recommend you throw the site into your favorites and check it out whenever you’re in dire need of a smile or just something interesting.

One of the contributors is one of my favorite writers (that you can find on the internet, though I can’t imagine she’ll be confined to just the internet for long), Molly Young, and there’s a few other writers there too whom I don’t know of yet. Spike Jonze is supposed to poke in and out of the blog on occasion and… well, that’s enough out of me. Go check it out, okay?

And this is me showing you where the wild things really are (in case you were curious):

Probably should come up with some more inspiring titles sometime… anyway here is the glyph. It’s a tesseract, I think, rotated slightly. I rather like four dimensional objects. They’re very suggestive.

First off, I like that it’s two, three and four dimensional, with anaglyphic properties; blah blah, golden ratio. Is the cube inside another cube, cut out from a larger cube, or in some other spatial relationship? It’s pleasing to think with, in any event. I believe you can inscribe my phenomenological functions onto it if you wanted – by which I mean the ways you can read the relationships in the glyph are those functions. Something like that.

Since I’m in need of more functions, I feel like crafting an apophatic function. This is one of my favourite strains in reading mysticism, largely derived from reading about Ibn Arabi in a splendid book called Mystical Languages of Unsaying by M. Sells. Apophasis, being a mode of discourse, links my four other functions in a single endeavour, and for this particular Sufi it was a means of expressing the perpetual creativity of divinity, seated in the heart.

Where stream-of-consciousness is active in the conscious and stable in the unconscious sense, apophasis to my mind functions in the reverse such that the conscious stream is continually re-rendered by an active unconsciousness. What this means, in effect, is that the unconscious element of language – grammar and syntactical relationships – is the active part of the artistry. The content of the written is subject to the shifting and counterplay of the structure of the written. That’s a pretty basic and crude analysis, but it’ll pass for now.

Why bring in this part of the terminological manifold of the via negativa, beyond wanting to? A very tricky question. Perhaps it is related in some considerable extent to the notions I entertain of beauty, inspired by kabbalah – Tiphereth. This beauty for me resembles the idleness of my second post, since it is a languid quality – that which requires of it no more to be spoken; it is the unspeakable-of, replete beyond further need of exegesis – perhaps the non-increasable might be an apt hodgepodge. What I enjoy about this quality is that since it functions in the act of perception, there is no object; things are not individually presentable as beautiful, since it is an apophatic negation of the structural field of relations which gives rise to beauty (thus, beauty can actually be truth).

There’s an entertaining inside to that philosophy, since it isn’t designed at all to suppress historical notions of beauty; it is designed in a way to vindicate them and contain them in my own dastardly totality. For instance, in the case of proportion-as-beauty (classical?): since the structural field is configured to designate value to proportion relative to its ideal perfection, the actual presentation, at least phenomenologically, of such a scenario has an apophatic effect that dissolves the structural field of value upon its presentation. Perhaps less truth-is-beauty than truth-equals-beauty.

In any case, it’s something I need to think more on and clarify better. There’s something about this angle of attack that leaves me lukewarm, especially as it isn’t precisely what I had in mind. Then again, maybe that’s for the best, since part of the apophatic function I had in mind is for beauty always to be an approach to, not a presence of itself.

Maybe I’m just cheating…

Title:  A Wrinkle In Time

Author:  Madeleine L’Engle

Paperback:  247 pages

Publisher:  Square Fish

Publish Date:  2007

ISBN:  9780312367541

Miscellaneous:  Originally published in 1962 (after 26 rejection letters, I might add), A Wrinkle in Time is the first book in The Wrinkle in Time Quintet book series.

Meg’s eyes ached from the strain of looking and seeing nothing.  Then, above the clouds which encircled the mountain, she seemed to see a shadow, a faint think of darkness so far off that she was scarcely sure she was really seeing it…  It was a shadow, nothing but a shadow.  It was not even as tangible as a cloud.  Was it cast by something?  Or was it a Thing in itself?

The sky darkened.  The gold left the light and they were surrounded by blue, blue deepening until where there had been nothing but the evening sky there was now a faint pulse of star, and then another and another and another.  There were more stars than Meg had ever seen before.

“The atmosphere is so thin here,” Mrs Whatsit said as though in answer to her unasked question, “that it does not obscure your vision as it would at home.  Now look.  Look straight ahead.”

Meg looked.  The dark shadow was still there.  It had not lessened or dispersed with the coming of night.  And where the shadow was the stars were not visible.

What could there be about a shadow that was so terrible that she knew that there had never been before or ever would be again, anything that would chill her with a fear that was beyond shuddering, beyond crying or screaming, beyond the possibility of comfort?

-A Wrinkle in Timeby Madeleine L’Engle, pages 81-82

I have started reading and put down without finishing A Wrinkle in Timeby Madeleine L’Engle three or more times in my life.  It is one of those few books that I have felt like I’m suppose to read it, or that I should read it, but have never been able to finish.  I have long felt like I couldn’t let the book beat me, even going so far as to watch the movie in hopes of encouraging myself.  And now, I can finally say that, after first picking it up nearly 25 years ago in fifth grade, I have read A Wrinkle in Time.

I’ve always said that I didn’t know why I couldn’t get into this book, and this time around I figured out what it is that grates my nerves about it.  MEG.  Meg is whiny, and mopey, and self-deprecating.  She’s horrid, to be quite honest, and every time she spoke I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly fell out.  “Wah Wah Wah… nobody likes me.  I’m dumb.  I’m ugly.  Blah, blah, blah.”  BUT, she does change, thank GAWD!  In fact, as the book neared it’s end, her attitude and behaviour is explained.

“I’m sorry… I wanted you to do it all for me.  I wanted everything to be all easy and simple….  So I tried to pretend that it was all your fault… because I was scared, and I didn’t want to have to do anything myself” -page 220

Beginning with a groaner of a first line, “It was a dark and stormy night…”  A Wrinkle in Timespins a tale that crosses the universe and even dimensions.  Young Charles Wallace is different from other people, he understands the world around him in a unique way.  He is very protective of his sister Meg, whom he sees as needing him.  Meg is a sulky teen girl going through an ugly duckling phase, who prefers math and science to anything having to do with the world of words.  The two of them plus Calvin, a local sports hero and relates to the world around him in a similar way to Charles Wallace, travel across the universe by tessering, something akin to a wormhole.  They are on a mission to save Charles and Meg’s father from IT, the controlling entity on Camazotz, a planet which has submitted to the darkness.  To accomplish this task, they will all learn much about themselves, their talents and faults, and ultimately about love, the only force capable of conquering evil.

I really wish I had stuck with this story when I first started it.  I think I would have truly appreciated it had I pushed through the first fourth of the book.  As it is, I still enjoyed it, and want to read A Wind in the Door, the next book in the Quintet.  I was surprised by L’Engle’s Christian references.  If people are shocked and wish to challenge Narnian books on the basis of their religious overtones, then these same folk would have apoplectic fits when reading actual passages from the Bible in A Wrinkle in Time.

The fact that the book is so overtly Christian, though Buddha and Gandhi are also given credit as “lights” in the fight against the darkness, is even more stimulating when you take into consideration that the story takes Einstein’s theories about time and gravity as inspiration AND makes a further bold step (mind, this book was FIRST published in 1962, before civil rights and ERA) by making the hero and saviour a female.  The story itself is interesting, if not a bit simple, but the context surrounding it and the complex science it incorporates make A Wrinkle in Time an impressive book and a literary classic.

A Wrinkle in Timeby Madeleine L’Engle incorporates science and religion in a harmonious way and said that guys aren’t the only heroes, is math and science just for men.  For all that the story is and what the book represents, I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

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The following video is a clear and concise mathematical explanation of a tesseract. It incorporates lines from the book, as well.

Oww… OW! My brain hurts!!!

1. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle–Already read it way back when.  Read it again, and it is fabulous.  Far better than Philip Pullman’s Golden Compass/His Dark Materials series.  I think I’m going to have some kids just so I can read it with/to them.  I have mixed feelings about the fact that it seems unfilmable (despite the existence of at least one cinematic attempt).  Disappointed, because more people would get to know L’Engle’s creation.  Kind of glad, though, because I can pretend it’s my little secret, despite the fact that it won the Newbery Medal, sold millions of copies, and is read in classrooms across America.  Also, check out this 3-d image of a 5-d tesseract (those of you in the know know):

2. A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle–So I’m hooked and also already read this one, too.  Three cheers for kything and farondalae!  But I have to wonder at the lack of tesseraction.

3. A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle–Third in the series, it is in my sights this week.  For some reason, while the first two books are shelved in the children’s section at Durham Downtown Library, this one is in the Young Adult section.  I assume it must have frank, sexual discussion or a teenage angst-filled Charles Wallace.  (Holden Caulfield plus telepathy: a deadly cocktail.)  Maybe after I read all the Madeleine L’Engle that exists, I’ll return to Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain as well.

4. Great Lent by Alexander Schmemann–I think you’ve heard of it by now.  I couldn’t swear to having read a single page last week.

5. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller–In my three years as a graduate student at Duke, I have only requested that Duke buy two books.  (You know Duke has some serious money, since this is an option, despite the fact that most books people want are at least available through Inter-Library Loan.)  And the two books are…<drum pum pum pum roll>…this one and Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore, the two comics most responsible for the Heath Ledger version of the Joker in The Dark Knight.  At least I know that a collections librarian is one person on this earth who has no room to judge me for my nerdiness.  Then there’s the fact that I only thought about requesting that Duke buy it after my friend Dave successfully requested that Duke buy the second half of the third season of Entourage (which, I will admit, is a darn good show by that point in its run).

6. Helping People Forgive by David W. Augsburger–Haven’t started it yet, but the title sounds descriptive.  The readings for Acolatse’s Marriage and Family class are amazing this week.  Christian healing and forgiveness, non-violent communication of anger, getting the local church to start talking/dealing with sexual abuse.  Terrific articles.

7. Random stuff from Kant, specifically his discussion of virtue.

Truly I’m back from Spring Break.  And truly I am checked out even more than ever.  Addicted to graphic novels, children’s novels, and computer games from my childhood.  My friend Samara told me today that we have 5 weeks of classes left.  Let’s see, on my schedule that makes…15 days of classes left.  Not going to help me stay involved.  I just need to divert my energy toward constructivity around the house instead of toward my ancient English civilization (which is now building railroads in 400AD, while destroying the Aztec and American civilizations simultaneously).

And then there’s my Application for Holy Orders.  It’s less fun than it sounds.

I promised my friends at Swathantra Malayalam Computing long time back about extending Tesseract to support Malayalam. For last some weeks i have been talking with Debayan who does for Bengali and was trying to understand the detail of work required. We decided to work together on enhancing the existing tesseract system for indic languages. I will be following the work up in Indic tesseract space.

I conducted some small intial experiments. It gave me an idea of what i have and what is to be done(i am looking forward to a high performance system with efficiency for practical use).

To test the symbol classifier of tesseract(note just classifier), i trained it with a single page and tested on another of same font.

Training data was of about 1000 symbols.Which is pretty small compared to the usual number of symbols we encounter in malayalam which is pegged around 250-350(there are many variations! Hussain sir can give a better number). To my amazement, tesseract training is easy,simple and takes pretty less time(performance evaluation might be immature since, we haven’t trained it perfectly yet).

My initial observations are,

• The segmentation part of Tesseract is not great and it might not work well with Indic languages( from what i understand, lot of research work is going on improving the segmentation of tesseract). I found it handicapped in case of upper and lower matras.
• Since it is not designed for languages with pre base post base modifier forms, it wont do any re arrangement of modifiers(we have to add language heuristics after recognition).
• Their DAWG based language model is pretty buggy at the moment and might not help us much since,
  • In symbol to code mapping, we don’t have a one to one map.
  • The standard word length it assumes and what we have(when counted in unicode level) very different, which makes a dawg based system very inefficient.
  • A simple dictionary based post processor might help us better i think.

I decided on a future work plan(i will soon update the wiki with these details).

Future work

• Understand the code flow and working of tesseract system(mainly how each functions are called from where for what etc.).
• Identify the modules which affects us and try to understand how.
• Keeping the classifier intact, add a better segmentation system(better fix the bugs in current algo if possible).
• Add a reordering mechanism which is scalable to all languages(i have pretty good idea how to do it, just have to find the right place to insert it to get the right results).
• Add a simple aspell or similar spell checker based language model which should help in correcting the words better than an expensive dawg system.

Immediate Plans

• Train with more data(more fonts,more samples,more symbols). I am planning to do this update before 15th of this month if everything goes will according to plan.

By the way sorry for the tech document kind of style! More tech writing is affecting my normal writing too!Plus day night writig code makes it tough to write something which is not in proper syntax!

Interessanti considerazioni, quelle di Aurora Alicino:

Quante volte si guarda con apprensione al futuro, perché rappresenta un’incognita, un’incertezza, qualcosa che non sempre siamo pronti ad affrontare? E ci si rifugia, magari a livello inconscio, nella certezza del passato, in quel che la nostra psiche ha già digerito, sebbene per farlo abbia a suo modo elaborato. A suo modo. Una parziale verità di ciò che è stato e che si fa riparo – illusorio – dalle intemperie della vita.
Nel ricordo, a volte, ancora si soffre, ma è una sofferenza nota, che in un certo senso è capace di consolarci, per il solo fatto che è passata.
Verità parziale: non esiste mai una sola versione dei fatti perché difficilmente siamo soli quando accade qualcosa. E, anche se lo fossimo, quella che viviamo, che percepiamo, sarebbe solo la nostra personale realtà, una delle infinite possibili.
Penso al Tesseract (o ipercubo), che ci mostra quanto la tridimensionalità a cui siamo avvezzi possa essere limitata, aprendo strade a mondi al limite dell’umana comprensione.
Penso al detective Del Spooner (Will Smith in Io, Robot), unico essere umano in grado di concepire la colpevolezza in un robot, al punto da scambiare una gentilezza per un borseggio.
Penso agli Scorpioni, criminali di guerra che alcuni “scambiano” per eroi.
Senza andare a cercare lontano, ogni avvenimento, ogni attimo della nostra vita è condizionato dal nostro giudizio, dalla personale visione dei fatti.
Non a caso, quando una notizia passa di bocca in bocca, finisce per deformarsi, arricchendosi di nuovi particolari e spunti a ogni passaggio.

(segue)

Salutations, my humble audience!  The post below is written by Steve J. Moore, of theSpigot.  I have copied and pasted it with his permission.  If you have not read Part 1, I strongly encourage you to do so first by clicking here.  Be careful: this discussion may actually make you think, something you are not used to on the Kyle Baxter Project.  Enjoy it, and leave lots of comments for me, Steve, and Nathaniel on our respective blogs!

Starting directly below this sentence is Part 2, written by the aforementioned Steve J. Moore.  I’ll probably have to ask him to write a dumbed-down version so I can understand it.  It is very impressive work!

Part 1 was posted over on NonDeScript first,  Nathaniel Carroll’s budding blog based in Springfield (like me!). I suggest that you click on over there first to prime the conversational pump for this seemingly simple discussion. Below is my reflection.

• What is then Internet?
• How do we relate to it?
• How does it relate to us?
• Is the Internet “art”?

The Internet is a function of art and life times expression.

I=ƒ(a,l)e

So, if we look at the events that are taking place in people’s lives around the globe each day, they exist either as art or not based on opinions, evaluations, and judgments. If we decide that “life” is a general term for every event that takes place in or outside of our awareness, then it operates as a separate coefficient from “art.”

Am I starting to bore you yet? Maths and art? There will be graphs soon, I promise.

Expression can give either negative or positive effect upon the function as a whole, but in order for the identity to be defined, it is required. The Internet cannot exist without “expression” in some form.

I won’t even attempt to ask why “we” exist, but I’d like to know how we exist and function in relation to “I”, the internet. If “P” stands for people, then people are a function of their experiences and other people.

P=ƒ(x, p₂)

So, if we examine a person or a group of people’s experiences, then it goes without saying that people besides the said person or group will have an influence upon him or her (notwithstanding the desert island scenario).

Graph Time!

As the above graph illustrates, the functions I and P are integrated, highlighting the importance and interrelatedness of the identities. Ok, so maybe it’s just a nonsense graph I drew on some newspaper, but as Carroll pointed out in his post, the Internet is inextricably connected to our lives today.

Maybe I’ll follow this mathematical tangent a while longer (oh, the puns, they hurt me). If you’ve ever been in the 4^th grade, then there’s a good chance that your teacher read to you, as mine did to me, Madeline L’Enengle’s masterpiece A Wrinkle In Time. If not, head to your local library, check it out, and spend a few hours in a coffee shop alone with it.

A “tesseract” is what the characters in the book use to travel through dimensions and time. In math a tesseract is, basically, a cube inside another cube that is also connected. It is  a shape that represents another direction, another dimension of existence. That sounds very philosophical, but it just means lines that extend from the same points into different places.

Before I continue–rather, before I can continue letting you suffer through this math read, I need to make a qualification.

“For me, math is like this: An attractive lady that I never have a chance of actually dating, but with whom I enjoy flirting very much.”

Ok, thanks. Now I’ll go on. So if the Internet (which I have to keep reminding myself is a capitalized proper noun) is a function connected to people, then it is like a tesseract; the Internet is a cube inside of another cube that is not floating, but is connected.

Here’s where things get interesting. You can tell from the picture below that this tesseract shape is fairly easy to conceive. It kinda looks like a sugar cube or, if you’re a chemist, maybe some compound’s crystalline structure.

With the exception of all the little greek symbols which I know nothing about, the sape is not a strange escher-esque, floating, mobiüs strip type thing. It’s just a cube inside another cube. Maybe the internet is like this…Maybe the cyberworld, which obviously exists within the human world is just a reflection of the human world.

Math people, you know what’s coming most likely, but regular folks (myself included) prepare to change your pants.

how does it do that?!!?

Which cube is which? What is the cyber world and what is human? Is the Governor of California going to come out of this cube like a Magic Eye picture if I stare too long?!

The tesseract changes when it is rotated; both cubes stay completely intact, but their positions become interchageable. This is the conclusion that I draw about the relationship of people to the Internet; they are reflexive of one another. They are coefficients of the same variable.

I have a feeling that I will be using this mainly as a medium for ideas with the hope that others will comment with follow up ideas.  This being my first post, I’m starting with the most abstract, confusing idea so that it may be muddled over for the next few months.

Quantum Physics:

Two disparate, but connected ideas exist for me:  macrocosoms and microcosms.  I consider the macrocosm as space, like the universe, with planets, gravity, galaxies, and too much physics to wrap my head around.  I consider the microcosm as the small parts of our world, like atoms.

Macrocosoms seem abstract.  I find it difficult to turn abstract thought into physical reality and so trend toward realism, but space allows some fantasy.  Because we know relatively little about space, anything could exist.  For example, the fourth dimension.  It can be described as time, or a literal fourth dimension. Here is a link to describe in further detail: 4D.  These are a couple of images showing how geometry would behave in 4 dimensions.

Again, I wish that I could some how take these ideas and form them into something tangible.  I suppose that some things are meant to remain mysteries….

The microcosmic world of particles and sublimation and absolute zero captures a very tangible, concrete part of my mind. I can grasp onto these ideas and make some something definite from the ideas.  I’ve recently been throwing around the ideas of solid, liquid, and gas.  Moving materials from one state to another with a captured essence of color.  Water color ice cubes and steam paintings have started my fascination with atoms.  I haven’t fully explored the possibilities of each, but the ideas are formed.  Here is a video of one of the microcosmic abstract ideas that makes my mind explode:

However abstract the Bose–Einstein Condensate may seem, the point when the particles are every where at once makes me want to cry with joy.  Because every particle is everywhere, they become one.  It’s like a microcosmic world of atoms acting as the macrocosmic universe.

Does anyone know where I can obtain a freezer that will make my paint approach absolute zero?

Last week, I began to discuss the ideas of multi-dimensional thought. I really don’t have anything to go upon except my own ideas. I have looked briefly for web resources and haven’t found anything. I have some books on the way but until then I want to see if we can cover some territory.

I guess where we need to start is with trying to understand what dimensions of thought may be. I guess I will approach this linguistically – what types of writing do we do and how do they relate to geometric shapes.

* These are the areas that I would like to explore and see if there are methods of relating in the 4th dimension.

I’m leaning towards a Euclidean space versus a Minkowski space. Minkowski space is basically adding time to the standard 3 dimensions. Linguistically this would lead to story or poetry over time. Thus we end up with history or experience. This is unsatisfactory as a method for critical interpretation within a singular text.

Euclidean space holds the (hope) for internal investigation of a text. By measuring the distance between key words or ideas, there may develop patterns and shapes that suggest a deeper logic than previously appreciated. If these patterns do exist, it may be possible to develop rules for grammar and composition.

Your thoughts?

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