05 5 / 2012
Images of Aggregation by Andy Lomas.
Lomas on his work:
These works come from a study of organic natural forms and their relationship to simple mathematical rules.
Influenced by the work of D’Arcy Thompson, Alan Turing and Ernst Haeckel, they study how intricate forms of plant and coral like structures can be created by digital simulation of flow and deposition.
The sculptural shapes are created by a process of accretion over time. They are gradually grown by simulating the paths of millions of particles randomly flowing in a field of forces. Over time they build on top of an initial simple seed surface to produce structures of immense complexity.
(via proofmathisbeautiful)
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05 5 / 2012
Dmitri Tymoczko — author of The Geometry of Music
- how to make visual representations of music
- (in paintings, video games, sculpture)
- 5 constraints on a composition that are necessary (but not sufficient) for it to sound good
- global statistical properties of songs
- why 20th century classical music had little audience
- a random painting is much less offensive to the eye than random notes are to the ear
- “I came up with these 5 principles using my brain, which is a kind of crude statistical device”
- the piano is essentially a line
- [NB: linear ⊃ monotonic ⊃ totally ordered]
- violin/voice musicians know that notes ⊂ continuous space, but the piano does us a favour by constraining us to a subset of those notes
- line
mod 13= circle- (equivalence classes of octaves —
A1=A2=A9andE4=E7=E12etc.)- directed segments, unordered tuples
- musical translation = mathematical transposition, musical inversion = mathematical rotation
- The fact that most people don’t have most perfect pitch (things sound the same in different keys) may be so that we can understand that, despite pitch differences in male/female adults’ speech and children’s speech, they are saying the same words.
- “It’s as if we couldn’t tell the difference between red and blue, but we were highly sensitive to the-difference-between-red-and-orange and the-difference-between-blue-and-green.
- [Also: this.]
- Minor vs major is the other isometry of the circle (besides rotation): reflection.
- “Harmonic progression is like zone defence”
- Minute 26: Awesome. Watch how to move around in 2-chord space — seen on a circle and on Tymoczko’s grid
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12 4 / 2012
"And it occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again."
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08 4 / 2012
U.S. Department of State: Promoting Service and Strategic Priorities in Madrid
About the Author: Ann Stock serves as Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Last week, I visited Spain’s beautiful capital city, meeting with the Department of State’s partners in culture, education, and civil service. The
(Source: blogs.state.gov)
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08 4 / 2012
Vivo Per Lei (letra)
Vivo per lei da quando sai
La prima volta l’ho incontrata,
Non mi ricordo come ma
Mi è entrata dentro e c’è restata.
Vivo per lei perché mi fa
Vibrare forte l’anima,
Vivo per lei e non è un peso.
Vivo per lei anch’io lo sai
E tu non esserne geloso,
Lei è di tutti quelli che
Hanno un bisogno sempre acceso,
Come uno stereo in camera,
Di chi è da solo e adesso sa,
Che è unico per lui, per questo
Io vivo per lei.
è una musa che ci invita
A sfiorarla con le dita,
Atraverso un pianoforte
La morte è lontana,
Io vivo per lei.
Vivo per lei che spesso sa
Essere dolce e sensuale,
A volte picchia in testa una
è un pugno che non fa mai male.
Vivo per lei lo so mi fa
Girare di città in città,
Soffrire un po’ ma almeno io vivo.
è un dolore quando parte.
Vivo per lei dentro gli hotels.
Con piacere estremo cresce.
Vivo per lei nel vortice.
Attraverso la mia voce
Si espande e amore produce.
Vivo per lei nient’altro ho
E quanti altri incontrerò
Che come me hanno scritto in viso:
Io vivo per lei.
Io vivo per lei
Sopra un palco o contro ad un muro…
Vivo per lei al limite.
… anche in un domani duro.
Vivo per lei al margine.
Ogni giorno
Una conquista,
La protagonista
Sarà sempre lei.
Vivo per lei perché oramai
Io non ho altra via d’uscita,
Perché la musica lo sai
Davvero non l’ho mai tradita.
Vivo per lei perché mi da
Pause e note in libertà
Ci fosse un’altra vita la vivo,
La vivo per lei.
Vivo per lei la musica.
Io vivo per lei.
Vivo per lei è unica.
Io vivo per lei.
Io vivo per lei.
Io vivo
Per lei.
04 4 / 2012
Fractals by Matt Walford
Walford on his project:
This series of still life images are based on ‘Fractals’ which are…Rough or fragmented geometric shapes that can be split into parts, each of which is approximately a reduced-size copy of the whole…. They were made using natural leaves and flowers, to create these naturalistic geometric patterns.
(via proofmathisbeautiful)
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04 4 / 2012
nybg:
Pinwheels for Prevention. In recognition of Child Abuse Prevention Month, more than 3,000 pinwheels have been “planted” in the Children’s Garden along the lake edge. Each pinwheel represents a child in Virginia who has been served during the past year by Prevent Child Abuse Virginia’s Healthy Families program. The pinwheels will be on display at the Garden until April 30.
(Photos by Garrett McLees)
I would love to see a little video of this. Props to our friends at Lewis Gintner for such a thoughtful way of supporting a good cause. ~AR
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04 4 / 2012
Tornadogenesis—the formation of tornadoes—remains a topic of active research as there is relatively little direct experimental data, owing to the difficulty of prediction as well as measurement. Initially, a variation of wind speed at different altitudes in the atmosphere causes shearing, which can lead to the formation of a horizontal column of rotating air—a vortex line similar to a roll cloud. Beneath a developing storm, the updraft of warm local air can pull this vortex line upwards, creating vertical rotation in the cloud, thereby birthing a supercell. Supercells do not always spawn tornadoes, and the exact causes that result in tornadic or nontornadic supercells are not fully understood. However, the formation of tornadoes within the supercell seems dependent on the downdraft of cool air within the storm as well as stretching of the vortex line, which increases its rate of rotation. For more information, check out this explanatory video and some of the talks by Paul Markowski. (Thanks to mindscrib, aggieastronaut and others for their submissions related to this topic! Photo credits: P. Markowski and D. Zaras)
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