[video]
Usually, when art and science, or science and religion, intersect, they are seen as being in opposition. Art is free-flowing where science is rigorous; religion is faith-based where science needs evidence. But sometimes, the three actually intersect in ways that, at least to my eye, actually heighten the beauty of all of them. One such example is medieval Muslim ornamentation.
Imagine you have a fixed set of tile shapes, but you can have as many of each as you want. Can you tile them in such a way that you fill an infinite plane, with no gaps? If you can, you’ve got yourself a tiling. If you can shift the pattern around in some way, say, one unit to the left, so that the end result is the same as you started with, you’ve got a periodic tiling. But if any shift at all in the pattern creates a unique pattern, the tiling is said to be non-periodic. And if you’ve got a set of tile shapes that can only form non-periodic tilings, no matter what pattern you make with them, the set of tiles is said to be aperiodic. Until the mid-20th century, mathematicians doubted that there could be aperiodic tilings. But in the 1970s, Roger Penrose discovered a set of very simple tiles that—if you apply a couple of restrictions to how they can be arranged (restrictions that can be made superfluous if you give the tiles some bumps)—are aperiodic, i.e., no matter how you arrange these tiles, and no matter how large a plane you tile, you will never find a periodic pattern. They’re called Penrose tiles.
This was new knowledge. No one knew about this until Western mathematics started exploring this in the mid-20th century. Or so we thought.
Because of Islam’s restrictions on religious iconography, such as depicting living beings, Islamic artists have found ways to make the most of abstract patterns and shapes. You see it in Arabic calligraphy, and you see it in the magnificent shapes on the walls of mosques and religious schools. In 2007, physicists Peter Lu and Paul Steinhardt discovered that the patterns on the walls of medieval Islamic buildings very closely resemble Penrose tilings. The crucial invention of girih tiles, basic shapes used to build more complex patterns, allowed Islamic architects to decorate their walls with non-periodic tilings. And in the Darb-e Imam shrine in Ishafan, Iran, built around 1450 (above), the tiles almost perfectly form a pattern that can be generalized as a Penrose tiling. If you deconstruct the pattern on the Darb-e Imam shrine into Penrose tiles, you’ll find that only 11 out of 3700 are mismatched, and the mismatch is so small that it’s “removable with a local rearrangement of a few tiles without affecting the rest of the pattern”. (more)
Two addendums to my previous “working might not be so bad” post:
1. Interning is not the same as working and in that sense my perception of work may be skewed. So many professionals take their work home with them, it’s not even funny.
2. Which brings me to my realization that—get this—you need to do what you love. I suppose this topic is highly subjective but I really can’t picture myself cursing my job for 40 hours a week; I’d rather the line be blurred between work and play. I really came to understand this epiphany through the education project I’m doing. Honestly, it’s a blessing and a joy coming in on Fridays and Saturdays, and none of the meetings feel obligatory or mechanical or that I am there because I want to burnish my resume. What a stupid notion, doing something for the sake of prestige or some similarly vapid. What an incredible feeling, collaborating with a team of highly motivated and talented individuals who share a similar work ethic and drive for change as you do.
I am not going to work for a living. I refuse. I think I’ll be fine.
I’m currently working on an HTML 5 game where you can experiment with orbital mechanics. It’s up for people to try here, so have a go. The only control is click to fire.
NASA’s aging Voyager spacecraft, more than three decades outbound from Earth and approaching the outermost limits of the solar system, may be seeing signs of what scientists believe are huge magnetic bubbles churning at the interface between the sun’s influence and interstellar space. The unexpected bubbles, shaped like sausages more than 100 million miles across, likely affect how high-energy cosmic rays pass into the inner solar system and may shed light on how stars interact with their galactic environments.
Voyager, I am proud.
I’m not a designer, but it’s still a great read for anyone graduating now, or ever.
A great post by Kyle Read about your first year as a designer out of college:
In continuation from the last post -and I don’t mean to get all sentimental here- but it has dawned on me that I really have had an interesting year, both personally and as a designer fresh out of school. (last time I reference my feelings on this blog, I promise.) After collecting some of the things I’ve learned as a design student of the world, I’ve compiled a list of some advice I’d give to graduates leaving SCAD, and really any one leaving any school, pertaining to my first year out. I in no way profess to know everything, but these are the things I believe to be truisms and good advice about my first year.
1. Yup, your professors were right. They weren’t crazy, or idealistic, or obsessed with theory only. Design is a profession learned slowly, and through failure. They knew what they said, and I hope you listened. They were right, for the most part, and by that I mean by no fault of their own, they only missed one small thing: you are your own person, and no matter how much you studied, you are now a designer of the early to mid twenty-first century, and theory and studies can only get you so far. Your professors could only be right up unto 2011. It’s up to you to write history now.
2. Plain and Simple. Don’t stop Hustlin. Whether you’re job searching, freelancing, or working to build your life. Hustle. Hustle harder than you’re ever hustled before. No more grades, just personal satisfaction. From now on, no matter how good you were, school was EASY. It’s now gonna be doubly hard to get anywhere. The only thing to do now is hustle, baby.
3. You will. This is a fact. Push through. PUSH THROUGH. I’ve seen it in everyone, me included. It may happen the day after graduation, or on day 364, and it may be for a minute, or a month, but you will, and it’s ok. Stay happy.
4. Ok, this is very similar to number 2…. however, this pertains especially to your professional life. If you don’t have a job yet, see number 2, if you do, your job is not done, it’s literally just beginning. There will be hardships along the way. School preps you great for talking to other people about your profession, and knowing your theory and honing your skills, but it does NOT teach you how to deal with a professional environment. It’s one of those things that can only be learned through experience, and every one is different. Small firm, Big company, freelance, no matter, everyone will have bosses, clients, and coworkers. These relationships can be rocky at first, but keep at it, and get creative on how to survive.
5. I think this is mostly for SCAD students, but DAMN those things were awesome. But no more… So use your free time wisely! It’s up to you!
6. This may be the most important one up here. Your friends are your new lifeline. Your new support group. Your new family. Your new social life, business partners, possible enemies, and possible opportunities. Keep the friends you made, and now make more. If you think you’re being annoying by trying to keep in touch, you’re not. Your friends are your life. They’re your most valuable asset now. (side note, writing a letter is an instant day-maker. I suggest writing letters to ALL of your facebook friends. Do it.)
7. So, in addition to friends… use ALL of the resources available to you. You’ve heard it a million times. It’s true. Milk this world for all it’s willing to give you! There really are so many new recources out there. There are no more campus computer labs, student discounts, instant and easily accessible groups of people and clubs, awesome school libraries or professors for free. BUT, there are still the public libraries, the internet, groupon, old people (my favorite), and countless others. USE THEM.
8. Bawwwww. Yup, it’s true. F#@% money, you’re a graduate of an institution that revered the pursuit of artistic and personal perfection, no reason that should change just because they gave you a piece of paper and a handshake. There’s always more money out there, but do what makes you happy, do what you love. Even if it’s not your day job, find a way to be happy with your free time. It doesn’t stop now, it only begins. (I believe my favorite acronym for SCAD -Sleep Comes After Death- is now even more applicable.) You can do it, this life is yours. Go get it. And if you want a friend to get it with, call me. really. @kyleread.
There’s much more I could say, but I feel I’ve already been long winded. See you out there grads.
[video]
Robby Grossman:
The reason I was so offended at first is that I thought that taking criticism was the standard of a student in a student-teacher relationship. To me it was like force-praising a bad teacher by saying “you do a great job showing up to class everyday.” That’s what you’d say to a teacher who had no teaching skills. But I quickly learned that my analogy was flawed. Taking criticism was a skill in itself. There were students who did not take feedback well. To this day I feel very sorry for them, because they lost out on 75 days worth of fantastic wilderness lessons.
And here’s why: nobody was willing to criticize these people after the first week because everybody knew it would lead to conflict. And so by the mountaineering section, when I was getting advanced critiques on navigating through a whiteout (very, very difficult), the more defensive folks were just trotting along, with the same navigation skillsets they had when they started.
Eventually I returned to civilization, and a while later I got my first job. I learned that people function exactly the same way in the office. I’ve seen people at work who take criticism well and respond with a thank you. They continue to get constructive feedback because people feel safe giving it to them. I’ve also seen people who explode in the way that I miraculously avoided despite being young and stupid. I feel sad when I see people do this, because I know that when everybody else is learning the advanced techniques for navigating their corporate worlds (very, very difficult), these people will be trotting along, the same as they were when they started.
(Source: nostrich)
“From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’” — Edgar Mitchell (via reddit)
(Source: inky)
Japan is NOT undergoing a cataclysmic nuclear emergency because... -
the media is overhyping the details. See link.
I can’t verify the validity of this article, but the physics seems to make sense.
