Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)
View allAll Photos Tagged mathematicians
The inflorescence of Romanesco broccoli or Romanesque cauliflower. Each bud is composed of a series of smaller buds, each arranged in a logarithmic spiral. Mathematicians use the term fractal to describe a curve or geometrical figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. In Romanesco broccoli, the pattern is only an approximate fractal since the pattern eventually terminates when the feature is sufficiently small. For more information see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanesco_broccoli
Please view enlarged.
I am very grateful for the very kind comments and faves. Thanks for visiting.
There is a colour photo (shallower dof) in the first comment.
f/32 1.6sec ISO 800 Pentax 100mm Pentax K-1
Taken on the dark and rainy Nottingham Light Night 2021.
More information about the mill and the mathematician can be found here:
"Ooops ... I need to review the logarithms"
For Flickr group "Happy Caturday!", topics: "Our cats by numbers"
The Mathematician
The Father of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence
The Logician
The Cryptanalyst
The Philosopher
The Genius
The Saver of Lives
One of the Greatest Persons of the 20th Century
One of the Greatest Ever Britons
.... and the victim of a cruel society.
Alan Turing
Read: 10 Facts About Enigma Codebreaker Alan Turing
Read: Alan Turing
Artwork ©jackiecrossley
© All rights reserved. This image may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, displayed, posted or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying & recording without my written permission. This image is not authorised for use on your blogs, pinboards, websites or use in any other way. You may not download this image without my written permission from me. Thank you.
Galileo Galilei was an important Italian scientist, physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher. His scientific contribution started a new era in the history of astronomy, he was the first astronomer to access new knowledge using the telescope. He defended the concept that the Earth was not the center of the universe.
Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy, on February 15, 1564, son of Vincenzo Galilei and Julia Ammannati. His parents noticed Galilei's great intelligence and special aptitudes from an early age. The boy showed an interest in the arts and performed excellent paintings, demonstrating manual skill and creativity to manufacture toys and contraptions. He played the organ and zither with aplomb. Thus, Galilei excelled in studies at the Sunday school in Vallombrosa and planned to enter the monastery, but his father did not agree with the idea and enrolled him to study medicine at the University of Pisa. Two years after joining, he dropped out of the course and went to dedicate himself to the study of mathematics. The move did not please his father, and Galilei ended up dropping out of the University in 1585. He did not complete any degrees, but in the same year he went to Florence and began giving private lessons to support himself. He stood out for his research in geometry and continued with his mathematical studies.
It was at this time that he invented the hydrostatic balance, a mechanism that would be published in a detailed treatise in the year 1644. In 1589, in recognition of his scientific contributions and brilliant reasoning, he was appointed to the chair of mathematics at the University of Pisa. He was not welcomed by teachers, as he was only 25 years old, had incomplete academic training and publicly discredited Aristotle's established theories. In 1590 Galilei published a treatise on the motion of bodies. In 1591 he was removed from the professorship, after succumbing to intrigues and disputes with Aristotle's supporters. In 1592 he was appointed by the Senate of Venice to teach mathematics at the University of Padua, a position he would hold for 18 years. In 1609 he built a telescope based on the one previously invented by Hans Lippershey in Holland. Galilei made meticulous observations of the sky and incredible discoveries: he located the four largest moons of Jupiter and the mountains and craters on the Moon's surface. And when he detected spots present on the Sun's surface, the discovery helped to prove his theory that the star rotated on an axis. He investigated Saturn and observed what appeared to be two fixed moons, which were the edges of Saturn's ring system, but Galilei's telescope was not accurate enough to determine exactly what those points were.
His findings were collected and published in March 1610 in the book “The Messenger of the Stars”. The work was acclaimed and also generated much controversy, as Galilei publicly defended Nicolaus Copernicus' theory that the Sun was the center of our Solar System, not the Earth. At that time, the Catholic Church fully controlled science and held the opposite view, that the center was the Earth.
In 1616 Galilei was cornered by the authorities of the Inquisition and threatened with the death penalty if he did not publicly deny the scientific truths he had proved. He was expressly prohibited from teaching and propagating ideas that were contrary to the position of the Church. Even so, in 1632 he published the "Dialogue Concerning the Two Greatest Systems of the Universe", causing the Church's total rejection and intolerance. Prevented from continuing with his research and theories, the scientist retired to his castle located in Arcetri, a village near Florence, where he dedicated himself to pursuing his experiments alone.
Galileo Galilei died on January 8, 1642 in Arcetri, Italy. He was almost blinded by the observation of sunspots done without adequate protection for decades. Three hundred and fifty years later, through Pope John Paul II, on October 31, 1992, the Catholic Church formally recognized the legitimacy of Galilei's theories.
***
He is reburied here:
In 1961, mathematician Edward Lorenz from the Institute of Technology in Boston was running simulations on a computer about the evolution of the climate of a certain region and discovered that small perturbations in the initial conditions of the system generated significant divergences over time. It was nothing more and nothing less than the birth of the famous phrase "A butterfly's flap of wings could cause a hurricane" and, with it, the beginnings of Chaos Theory. Over the years, mathematicians such as Mitchell Feigenbaum, David Ruelle, Floris Takens, and even Benoit Mandelbrot (father of fractal geometry) were working on the theory.
Towards the end of the 1980s, G. J. Sussman, J. Wisdom, and J. Laskar used powerful computers to perform a numerical simulation of the behavior of the outer and inner planets and discovered that, after a significant number of years, their orbits exhibited chaotic behavior. In particular, the orbital motion of the Earth and with it the Moon, was unstable after ten million years.
For now, regardless of changes, scientific advances, our finitude and contingency, and the fragile flutter of a butterfly, the planets and their moons remain there, within reach of our telescopes, beyond chaos and order in the bowels of disorder.
-------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------
From left to right: Ganymede, Europa, Jupiter and Io.
-------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------
Maksutov Cassegrain Telescope "Explore Scientific" 127, f/15.
Player One Ceres-C Camera.
Jupiter captured with Barlow Celestron X-Cell LX, 2x.
Moons captured without barlow for the final composition.
-------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------
December 24, 2023, 00:35 UT. Rural area, Concordia, Entre Ríos, Argentina.
long stories shortened... (discarded and abandoned and intertwined short stories) well..actually they are chunks and fragmets and notes of stories that never made it
____________________________________________
a young PhD math candidate writing his dissertation on an obscure arab mathematician from the middle ages who specialized in cycles and periods in infinite series and develops a process to determine prime number density in a large number space. (which is all and good) except this makes it an excellent tool to decrypting military grade encryption, which is based on the computational difficulty of factoring large numbers into their prime components
the arab mathematician was ultimately censured by the religious mullahs for developing tools to rationalize the infinite, which is of course the nature of Allah and for man to attempt to place Allah into a human scale is blasphemy
so the arab mathematician disappears and the young phd candidate finds that his dissertation has been suspended pending review but cant get any information on who is reviewing it
finally another young mathematician approaches him and starts a long discussion on math and the nature of numbers and the mathematicians love of the underlying structure of reality that math represents. the phd candidate is leary of this mathematician cause he wont answer what he does or where he went to school or how he knows so many cutting edge fields in math
eventually, the young mathematician offers the phd candidate a position with the NSA, National Security Agency, (where all the big crypto and high math goes on) but explains that if he accepts that he will essentially disappear from his current world. his work will be classified, he will not be able to publish in academic journals or speak in public, or talk about his work to his friends on the outside, but the compensation is that he
would be able to work unfettered with the greatest math minds in the country, totally funded, free to explore any field or fancy he thought. after a few moments of thought, the phd accepts.
then the story will go back to the arab mathematician who is also approached my a young beared mullah, who offers him a position within his group of thinkers who do ponder and explore the nature of nature reality and Allah through mathematics, but that by joining them he would need to disappear from the world, after a few minutes of thought, he too accepts...
--
Daniel sipped his 6th coffee (colloidal suspension for caffeine transport) while his batch jobs on ramanet, the Indian supergrid, finished their checksum verification. His chin, a bit stubbly, itched. His eyes, a bit red, were sore. The goa trance shoutcast feed had mushed into a fast cadence drone. The flat screen monitor warped and bulged with the oscillating fan blowing on Daniel's face
'O' glamorous larval life of a PhD student...' he jotted and doodle-circled on his notepad.
Daniel cracked his neck and jutted his jaw, stretching out the accumulation of kinks, as RamaNet finished the final integrity check on his dataset. this two hour round of processing on the Indian supergrid would cost about $130 out of his precious grant fund, but you couldnt beat the bargain. 120 minutes times 150,000 PCs in the RamaNet processing collective = 1,080,000,000 seconds or 18,000,000 minutes or 300,000 hours or 12500 days or 34.25 years of processing time for the price of a video game. Calculation was commoditized now. You uploaded your pre-fromatted dataset to RamaNet. the data was packeted and sent to out to 150,000 Indians who lent a few percents of never-to-be missed CPU cycles off their systems for background processing. when their alotted package was completed it was sent back to RamaNet for re-assembly into something coherent for the buyer. in return the Indians got a rebate on their net access charges or access to premier bollywood galleries or credit towards their own processing charges. a good deal all the way around. Daniel's dataset, an anthology of complex proofs from a long-dead arab mathematician, was queued with amateur weather forecast modeling, home-brewed digital CGI for indie movies, chaos theory-based currency trading algorithms, etc. the really high end, confidential jobs, like protein folding analysis or big pharm drug trials were more likely handled by the huge western collectives of several million collaborative systems, usually high-performance machines in dedicated corporate server farms. the cost there was out of Daniel's range, but you got a faster return and better promises of encryption for your buck.
Daniel scratched his scalp and flexed his fingers. 'two months from today i will be a doctor of mathematics...and no job. damnit. i need to find something fast.' Daniel calculated in his mind how quickly the student loans repayments would kick in and completely wipe him out. RamaNet would have done it in nanoseconds, ha! he laughed to himself. Daniel had avoided the rounds of job interviews and recommendations that passed his way. he was too absorbed in his research to look ahead, and perhaps a bit intimidated by the idea of the job hunt flea market. flexing his CV, getting a monkey suit, trying to explain his research to recruiters, who were often the same finger-counting business majors in college that made his skin crawl. Daniel always felt a bit embarrassed when he announced he was math PhD candidate. folks would immediately glaze over,
tsk tsk out a 'that's interesting', and swiftly change the subject. something will come up, he mantra'd to himself over and over, something will come up. stick with ali, there is something real in there, just a bit deeper. the real problem was his thesis advisor. dr. fuentes was not returning his calls, his secretary was not taking appointments from Daniel. he had submitted his finished draft of his thesis two weeks ago, but hadnt heard back since, except for a cryptic email saying that the review committee was having some issues with his paper and that Daniel would be hearing from him shortly. Daniel was rerunning his calculations on RamaNet to assuage the gnawing doubt that he completely botched some component of his argument and that the review committee was debating some manner of telling him to redo the entire effort. no PhD and no job. that would ice the cake. Daniel started calculating his body mass and general aerodynamic resistance relative to the height of the school cathedral to figure out if he had time to reach a terminal velocity before impact...only a failed math PhD would attempt to determine at what speed his body would smack concrete, he morbidly thought to himself.
ali ja'far muhammed ibn abdullah al-farisi slipped meditatively on his cup of water, thinking about his proof. he dipped a finger in the cup and held up a droplet of water under his fingertip, watching the sunlight prisimatically splay out on the mouth of the cup. 'praise be Allah and his wonderous bounty' he mumured to himself.
the elders had been in conference all day over his proof. though the heavy doors to their chamber were closed, he would occasionally hear muffled but distinctly angry shouts. ali sat on a divan in the anteroom, served numerous cups of tea by an obviously nervous secretary. ali knew there was deep resistance to his research, but for the life of him he couldnt figure out why. he was a simple mathematician. he came up with some unique observations. he wanted to share them with his peers...
_____________________________________________________
Overview: biotech researcher discovers a new life-extension technology and is murdered. He is cryogenically frozen for 150 years. When he is
revived he must stop a dark corporate conspiracy – and find his murderer.
Summer 2015 - Hot genius free-lance biotech researcher unravels the key component of a radical life-extension gene therapy that will ensure 300 years of robust life to its recipients. The researcher is murdered shortly after he hides the critical component. His distraught friend has him cryogenically frozen. 150 years later, the researcher is revived by the same major bio-med corporation for which he had originally been working.
Quickly he realizes that their motives are less than altruistic: his modification of the gene therapy is needed to resolve an unforeseen debilitation now creeping up in the recipients of the life-extension process. The recipients, now nearing 125 years off added life, are decompensating into psychotics. The researcher at first tries to remember and reconstruct what he did with the hidden critical component, but stops in disgust when he learns that in the past 150 years the life-extension therapy has been reserved solely for the ultra-affluent and has created an extreme and cruel global gerontocratic elite. He voices his disgust to his corporate minders, who cease being beneficent and show their true colors as trying to gain control of this critical technology in order to control the elites.
In the process of dealing with the corporation, he learns about his murder and begins investigating.As he comes closer to the identity of his murderer, he uncovers a wider conspiracy and is the target of more murder attempts.
He was killed by a friend in 2015. The friend was the CEO of a small bio-gen firm that the researcher was doing the LET work for. The CEO, a biz-head with a genetics academic background, took the researcher’s work and exploited it as his own, in the process growing his small firm into a bio-med powerhouse and him into one of the world’s wealthiest individuals.
The CEO also was the first recipient of the LET and is now 190 years old, but doesn’t look a day over 45. Smart, urbane, ruthless, the CEO used his wealth and position to start the cabal of Ultras. It is a faction of the top 50 smartest and wealthiest people in the world who have ‘ascended from the world’ (faked their demise) and control the global economy with their vast coordinated wealth. Perhaps they will call themselves ‘The Ascended’. We need to decide how the cabal lives. Are they sequestered on a luxurious island compound, or do they live in the open, surgically re-sculpted after each faked death, or do they live in the open.
Also we need to figure out what the world will look and feel like in 150 years.
As the ultras decompensate into psychosis, the CEO orders the researcher to be revived in order to find a cure. The CEO had the researcher’s lab notes decrypted and figured that the he was close if not successful in finding the missing component to stabilize the LET.
Tiberius Syndrome: the decline into cruel psychosis experienced by the ultras, named after the roman emperor Tiberius’ degenerate behavior after he sequestered himself on Capri.
The ironic twist might be that there is no cure, no stabilization. The psychosis is not the result of the LET alone, but also due in part to the unfettered ego/wills of the ultras. Absolute power corrupts…
________________________________________________________
a brazilian hacking syndicate was subcontracted by a st petersberg crew to run interference on a hit on SWIFT, the global currency clearinghouse notification network. The UniFavela clan was going to run a multi-flank raid. They specialized in fast propagating virii and had created a custom mail-in virus that exploited a few microsoft vulnerabilities that they had discovered and kept mum. Their target was a Latin American PR spokesman listed on the corporate web site for press queries. The PR flak would be just the sleepy guard on the wall for their virus to slip past. 30 minutes after opening an inocuous spoofed email from a French e-trade publication requesting clarification on the SWIFT-Indentrus partnership. the virus would port scan and map its entire site LAN, salmoning its way up the router paths till it found the deep waters of the main corporate campus network in Brussels. Shortly, the internal LAN at Brussels would be suffering switch and router buffer overflows and traffic would gasp, ack, and sputter. UniFavela would then towel whip out a vanilla DDOS on the main company web site, any INTERNIC-registered addresses, and any other system in the IP block reserved for SWIFT that had previously port scanned as interesting, or ,even, as nothing. Mongols charging the village gates and tossing flaming torches on thatched roofs. IT Operations would be running to and fro, trying to figure out the internal bandwidth crunch and if there was a bleedout causing the external net problems.
____________________________________________________________
The Post-Human Story of Minos:
the CEO of a powerful commercial combine is bore an illegitimate son by his indiscreet wife in retaliation for his own dalliances. the son has a hideous deformity but is fantastically brilliant - brilliant enough for the father overcome his own repulsion of the child - as a bastard and a freak. the father sequesters the child in an elaborate virtual domain. the child, a hacker savant, is used to breach competitor nets. but as his power in the digital realm expands, the child transforms into the tyrant-monster. using the nets, he lashes out at people who have caused him pain, then evolves into enjoying the taste of terror and fear. He becomes the Minotaur.
____________________________________________________________
'there was a mad scramble amongst all the big spook governments, dark side corporations, and the privacy maccabees once it was determined that quantum computation had left the tidal pool of academia, grown legs and air-breathing lungs, and was headed for the nat sec intel highlands. all previous encryption models were rendered obsolete, and worse, exposed. QC became an undefiable xray spotlight, laying bare any encrypted secret with a ease of opening a mathematical candy wrapper. And for a while it swung the advantage back to the state in the digital Boer War against the freecon partisans.'
____________________________________________________________
The Oort, to the Intras, looked as one people. Extra-stellar hillbillies, ekeing out a subsistance existence on extracted organics from the frozen crud comets and other planetesimals of the Oort Cloud that slung around the solar system in a 1K AU circuit. To the Oort there was no Oort. Each station, each kampong was distinct and seperate. Seperate dialects, traditions, norms, goals. Some were scientific collectives, some were tired mining operations, some were intense sectarian cults - they shared little between themselves beyond necessary trade links for scarce commodities.
---
A young prince is disgraced in an internal court scandal and sent into a quasi-exile on a worthless mission. On his travels he builds the wisdom and learns the skills necessary to be a just and effective leader.
His exile was a gambit by his patriarch to remove Genji from the arena of pointless court intrigues and develop him as a real leader. The patriarch dispatched a team of loyal praetorians to discreetly follow and protect Genji on his odyssey.
Genji was sent as an emissary to the Oort system. He must pass through the Martian-Saturnine corridor, populated with industrial trading guilds and their private militias.
----
Genealogy becomes paramount in a closed culture; hierarchy by heredity. Reference the roman patrician class’ death-grip obsession with lineage, or the medieval Japanese imperial court’s strict intra-elite caste system.
But in an era of extreme genetic engineering, how can bloodlines retain their importance? Perhaps this is the wrong question. Perhaps in an era of extreme genetic engineering, authentic bloodlines can only retain their importance. The longevity of an unchanged gene line demonstrates success in evolutionary competition. Over time however, the fitness of a rigidly enforced and ‘sequestered’ gene line will degrade. Consider the hemophilia of the European royal strata.
I would not want the imperial court of the inner system to be pure blue bloods, eschewing genetic manipulation. Rather I would have them take the opposite tack – and embrace genetic engineering in the pursuit of perfecting particular socially valued or distinctive attributes; a roman nose, elongated refined fingers, even the possession of certain ‘noble’ afflictions (for ex., the aforementioned hemophilia as a sign of noble lineage).
The elites should pursue genealogy with the same passion and gusto as horse breeders; studs and mares and percentages of bloodlines, enforced and suppressed gene expressions, surrogates, and gene modes des saisons.
__________________________________________________________
a bum finds a the wallet and keys of a man who jumped from a bridge
he goes to his townhouse to find something to eat or steal
is impressed and overwhelmed with the man's townhouse
showers, eats, gets cleaned up, finds some clothes
is ready to leave when he helps a woman wrestling with groceries at her door
she thanks him, but looks stunned.
‘are you the man in #560? umm..i have lived here for 3 years and have never actually seen you. you seem to leave so early in the morning and get
home so late and keep to yourself.’
they spend 30 minutes talking, having a generally warm friendly encounter.
‘well, I am so glad to have finally met you. Hope to see you soon.’ As she closes her door, the bum turns to leave but pauses and thinks for a moment, then goes back into the man's townhouse
he pours through the man's papers and keepsakes and learns that the man has no family that he speaks with, no friends, lives off a well-endowed trust fund
and
the bum moves in and takes over the mans identity
he brings warmth and sincerity to the man's identity
what makes a hermit tick? what lengths do they go to to remove themselves from society? does it become a game to avoid contact, trying to become a shadow, a phantom? does society dissolve away as a mental force in their thoughts, atrophy away or does it become an amputated impression?
what divsion line stands between a hermit and convict in solitary? the hermit, by and large, chooses their isolation, the convict has it enforced upon them. at what point does the human need for society or socialization collapse? is there anything left that we can inspect and evaluate? a hermit, however, is able to maintain walls against the Great Other, which would imply that they are seeking refuge from the world. a schizo or an autistic will be physically surrounded by others but unable or incapable of making contact.
when does the will to contact die? what is left over? do humans require contact to retain our humanity? can you love and sacrifice in a vacuum?
what defines humanity? oooh, a big question...
___________________________________________________________________
genetic engineering will continue to deconstruct the human species
there will be catastrophic disasters: gene sequence specific viruses engineered to attack 'types' of people. Der Genkampf
petroleum will be replaced- hydrogen-powered locomotion and green power (in the wealthy states). the poor states will continue to be held hostage to oil politics
(cultures and civilizations do not move forward uneringly. they spasticly jerk forward and fro, in clumps andgrains, never ever as a lemming death drive.)
developed economies will be netized. a new state structure will be needed to manage and dsitribute resources. the corporate structure, the commercial backbone of the capitalist democracy, will replace the republic. it is flexible to markets and political forces, insistent on accountability, it provides a sufficient compromise between individual representation and republican government. they will begin their political evolution as projects in community development. assurances of an educated workforce by charter education. assurances of uninterrupted utilities by running their own power/water etc. net-based marketplaces create corporate agoras. employees are in fact de facto citizens of the corporation. citizenship, or regular employment, will be a reward for merit, stock shares will count towards suffrage.
great corporate collectives will arise. housing, education, security...all the needs of the middle class will be absorbed in the corporate state. the tradtional state will cede roles and responsibilities to the corporate state as their resources dwindle. a few isolated violent reactions (military or legal)by the republics against the corporate states, but they will fail over time. against, or more so, in conjunction with the homogenized corporatsists wil be the diasporae, non-corporates will glom to other modes of networked alignment, ethnic allegiance will become stronger over time - as the chinese, indian, and jewish disporaestrengthen as a formula for a successful competition against/with the corporates.
the american state, succored by its overwhelming techo-military supremancy, loses its mission, its vision - substitutes will to dominate for will to excel - and falls into the deep narcotic, insulated slumber of the unassailable. GE, nano, and the banknote net weaken the mythic cohesion of the american spirit. we are no longer united by common experience (mass-mediated or otherwise) the promise of science to make us stronger, smarter, near immortal is held like a manifest destiny or a divine IOU for services rendered to humanity.
Hannah Fry ~ Waterstones ~ St James's Church ~ Piccadilly ~ London ~ England ~ Thursday March 28th 2019.
www.flickriver.com/photos/kevenlaw/popular-interesting/ Click here to see My most interesting images
Purchase some of my images here ~ www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/24360 ~ Should you so desire...go on, make me rich..lol...Oh...and if you see any of the images in my stream that you would like and are not there, then let me know and I'll add them to the site for you..:))
You can also buy my WWT card here (The Otter image) or in the shop at the Wetland Centre in Barnes ~ London ~ www.wwt.org.uk/shop/shop/wwt-greeting-cards/european-otte...
Have a Fabulous Friday Y'all..:)
If you are not a mathematician, you are unlikely to know of a gentleman named August Ferdinand Möbius, who was a professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at the University of Leipzig. Despite being outlandishly talented, the good professor didn’t exactly blaze through academic ranks because he was unable to attract paying students to take his class and would advertise his lectures as ‘free’ to get adequate enrollment. However, the absentminded professor considered mathematics to be poetic, and ended up defining and lending his name to one of the most enigmatic two-dimensional structures: the Möbius band (or, Möbius strip).
Yes, all of us have seen a Möbius band: the recycling sign on plastic or the infinity sign are great examples of Möbius band. To make a Möbius strip of your own, find yourself a rectangular strip of paper and glue both ends of the strip together after half-twisting the paper (by 180 degrees). Many things are extremely remarkable about this structure. Most uniquely, this two-dimensional structure has one surface. Don’t believe? Find yourself a ink pen and mark your initials anywhere on the surface. Now, with your finger tip, travel away from your initials along the central line of the strip surface. Keep going without lifting your finger from the paper. When you will have traveled the whole strip twice, you will find your fingers back on your initials –– convinced, that’s only one surface?
This 'one surface' property leads to another unintuitive – almost tantalizing – nature of this unique structure where the laterally inverted (mirror image) form of any physical point exists on the same surface! In a regular piece of paper, your initials and its mirror image (bleed-through the paper) would be on two different surfaces; To travel between them, you will have to switch surfaces. But in your personal paper Möbius strip, it is now possible to start from your initials, and without altering surfaces, reach their bleed-through mirror image, which is apparently on the other side of the surface from your initials! Also, one could keep walking on the only surface of the strip forever without ever needing to turn around – if you didn’t already, now you know why the infinity sign looks as it does!
Finally, the most unintuitive signature of Mobius structures is that they are unorientable. What’s that, right? Points on orientable things, like a ball or a bat, can be ‘inward’ and ‘outward’ or ‘upward’ and ‘downward’. No matter how you rotate the ball, an ‘outward’ point will always remain outward. But on a Möbius band, a point can slide from an ‘outward’ to an ‘inward’ orientation by rotating the strip. Simply put, the Möbius band has no ‘sidedness’. Here, every point and its mirror-image have collapsed on the same surface. It is as if, all dichotomies have disappeared and dimensions have warped-up somewhere!
Do Möbius bands exist in nature? Yes, they do. Despite the illusory visual of being so, the famous namesake arch in Alabama hills, CA is geometrically not a Möbius band. But, non-fictitious Möbius bands exist in nature elsewhere. Crystals of certain chemical compounds (e.g., niobium and selenium, NbSe3) display Möbius structures. In quantum physics, waveforms for fermions (not bosons) curiously reminds one of the Möbius pattern. Now, imagine how nice would it be if we had Möbius roller coasters or freeways in our perceivable world? We could then hop on them to simultaneously be ourselves and our mirror image – our alter ago – thereby drawing a closure to all our dichotomies. Wouldn’t it be nice if that happened?
Let me close with a crazy thought. What if, Möbius bands come into existence somewhere in those ten dimensions (M-theory) around us somewhen during magical times of the day, but due to limitations of our perceptual faculties, we are unable to acknowledge their presence?
Secret #26: Having a degree in maths does not mean I can count! Seriously, I can prove theorems like "i to the power of i is a great number of real distinct numbers"... but I suck at splitting the restaurant bill.
Rachel Riley ~ Trolled ~ Kingspace ~ Kings Cross ~ London ~ England ~ Sunday September 15th 2019.
www.flickriver.com/photos/kevenlaw/popular-interesting/ Click here to see My most interesting images
Purchase some of my images here ~ www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/24360 ~ Should you so desire...go on, make me rich..lol...Oh...and if you see any of the images in my stream that you would like and are not there, then let me know and I'll add them to the site for you..:))
You can also buy my WWT card here (The Otter image) or in the shop at the Wetland Centre in Barnes ~ London ~ www.wwt.org.uk/shop/shop/wwt-greeting-cards/european-otte...
Well, I had the absolute awesome pleasure of seeing & meeting the always gorgeous Mathematician & TV Presenter Rachel Riley at the @kingsplacelondon in #london for a live #podcast of #trolled Both, she, Tracy Ann Oberman & Nick Cohen were as awesome as you'd expect on the difficult subject of "On line" abuse!!! 😊
Have a great Monday Y'all..:)
This Group become a mathematicians today at a University of Szeged . Found them drinking vodka ,beer and other good stuff at side of the fountain ! two of them had math hat !
Rachel Riley ~ Trolled ~ Kingspace ~ Kings Cross ~ London ~ England ~ Sunday September 15th 2019.
www.flickriver.com/photos/kevenlaw/popular-interesting/ Click here to see My most interesting images
Purchase some of my images here ~ www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/24360 ~ Should you so desire...go on, make me rich..lol...Oh...and if you see any of the images in my stream that you would like and are not there, then let me know and I'll add them to the site for you..:))
You can also buy my WWT card here (The Otter image) or in the shop at the Wetland Centre in Barnes ~ London ~ www.wwt.org.uk/shop/shop/wwt-greeting-cards/european-otte...
Well, I had the absolute awesome pleasure of seeing & meeting the always gorgeous Mathematician & TV Presenter Rachel Riley at the @kingsplacelondon in #london for a live #podcast of #trolled Both, she, Tracy Ann Oberman & Nick Cohen were as awesome as you'd expect on the difficult subject of "On line" abuse!!! 😊
Have a great Hump Day Wednesday Y'all..:)
Otton Nikodym and Stefan Banach who were sitting here in Cracow in October 1916 and met another famous mathematicial - prof. Hugo Steinhaus;
commemorative monument - the author Stefan Dousa; financed by the Astor company; October 2016; Poland
Srinivasa Ramanujan FRS was an Indian mathematician who l had almost no formal training in pure mathematics. He made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions, including solutions to mathematical problems then considered unsolvable. Ramanujan initially developed his own mathematical research in isolation. Seeking mathematicians who could better understand his work, in 1913 he began a postal partnership with the English mathematician G. H. Hardy at the University of Cambridge, England. Recognizing Ramanujan's work as extraordinary, Hardy arranged for him to travel to Cambridge. In his notes, Ramanujan had produced groundbreaking new theorems, including some that Hardy said had "defeated him and his colleagues completely", in addition to rediscovering recently proven but highly advanced results.
*** *** ***
I'm stampolina and I love to take photos of stamps. Thanks for visiting this pages on flickr.
I'm neither a typical collector of stamps, nor a stamp dealer. I'm only a stamp photograph. I'm fascinated of the fine close-up structures which are hidden in this small stamp-pictures. Please don't ask of the worth of these stamps - the most ones have a worth of a few cents or still less.
By the way, I wanna say thank you to all flickr users who have sent me stamps! Great! Thank you! Someone sent me 3 or 5 stamps, another one sent me more than 20 stamps in a letter. It's everytime a great surprise for me and I'm everytime happy to get letters with stamps inside from you!
thx, stampolina
For the case you wanna send also stamps - it is possible. (...I'm pretty sure you'll see these stamps on this photostream on flickr :) thx!
stampolina68
Mühlenweg 3/2
3244 Ruprechtshofen
Austria - Europe
* * * * * * * * *
great stamp Helvetia 40c Celestial globe, Himmelsglobus, Globus coelestis (by Jost Bürgi, 1552-1632, swiss mathematician, watchmaker and astronomer; Globe céleste, Звёздный глобус, 天球仪)
View On BlackIt really worth it
Hagia Sophia (from the Greek: Ἁγία Σοφία, "Holy Wisdom"; Latin: Sancta Sophia or Sancta Sapientia; Turkish: Ayasofya) is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. From the date of its dedication in 360 until 1453, it served as the Greek Patriarchal cathedral of Constantinople, except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople of the Western Crusader established Latin Empire. The building was a mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931, when it was secularized. It was opened as a museum on 1 February 1935.[1]
The Church was dedicated to the Logos, the second person of the Holy Trinity,[2] its dedication feast taking place on 25 December, the anniversary of the Birth of the incarnation of the Logos in Christ.[2] Although it is sometimes referred to as Sancta Sophia (as though it were named after Saint Sophia), sophia is the phonetic spelling in Latin of the Greek word for wisdom – the full name in Greek being Ναός τῆς Ἁγίας τοῦ Θεοῦ Σοφίας, "Church of the Holy Wisdom of God".[3][4]
Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and is said to have "changed the history of architecture."[5] It was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years, until Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520. The current building was originally constructed as a church between 532 and 537 on the orders of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian and was the third Church of the Holy Wisdom to occupy the site, the previous two having both been destroyed by rioters. It was designed by the Greek scientists Isidore of Miletus, a physicist, and Anthemius of Tralles, a mathematician.[6]
The church contained a large collection of holy relics and featured, among other things, a 49 foot (15 m) silver iconostasis. It was the seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople and the religious focal point of the Eastern Orthodox Church for nearly one thousand years. It is the church in which Cardinal Humbert in 1054 excommunicated Michael I Cerularius – which is commonly considered the start of the Great Schism.
In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmed II, who subsequently ordered the building converted into a mosque.[7] The bells, altar, iconostasis, and sacrificial vessels were removed and many of the mosaics were plastered over. Islamic features – such as the mihrab, minbar, and four minarets – were added while in the possession of the Ottomans. It remained a mosque until 1931 when it was closed to the public for four years. It was re-opened in 1935 as a museum by the Republic of Turkey.
For almost 500 years the principal mosque of Istanbul, Hagia Sophia served as a model for many other Ottoman mosques, such as the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque of Istanbul), the Şehzade Mosque, the Süleymaniye Mosque, the Rüstem Pasha Mosque and the Kılıç Ali Paşa Mosque.
WISH YOU A GREAT AND HAPPY DAY MY FRIENDS XOXOXO
@Thanks for your nice friendship,coments and faves.I really like them and they make me happy
Egnazio Danti (Perugia 1536 - Alatri 1586)
Mathematician, astronomer, Dominican friar and even cosmographer.
In 1567 or so, Cosimo I de Medici, Duke of Tuscany summoned him in his court to develop and share the mathematical and astronomical studies in the territory of his competence.
He became soon a Grand Ducal cosmographer working hard on the maps that are still decorating the Hall of Charts in Palazzo Vecchio.
During his permanence in Florence Danti lived at the convent of Santa Maria Novella assembling the armillary sphere, the gnomon and the gnomonic holes on the façade.
The armillary sphere, installed it on the building in 1574, is on the left side of the front of the church and was used to determine the time of the vernal or Spring equinox by the shadow of the sun on its equatorial ring.
It was with this instrument that Fra' Egnazio Danti established that the calendar was 10 days late. He presented his plan to the pope who approved it. Thus was born the Gregorian calendar which is also ours, jumping from 4 to 14 October
W / Underwing Moth (a.k.a. Old Wife Moth; Catocala palaeogama) on White Ash with moss and lichens - Suburban New Jersey, 25 miles west of "The City" (NYC)
No, not George W. Moth, but a moth with a black W on its back (see the image in the comment section to see the W), or M or ∑ (summation sign) if you're a mathematician.
I made this capture using a Sony a6000 with a Metabones E-mount to MD adapter using a Minolta Rokkor-X 100 mm macro lens equipped with a "life size" extension tube. There's no AF, and limited exposure control using the Minolta lens, so my technique was to dial the shutter speed to a proper exposure with the lens wide open (F3.5), manually focus on my subject, stop down the aperture to F16 to get the desired DOF, and then dial down the shutter speed to get a proper exposure (1 sec. in this case). That may seem like a lot of work, but the "through the viewfinder" mirrorless body with the "what you see is what you get" digital viewfinder makes figuring the exposure and DOF easy to do.
Moths are tough to ID since they are one of the most numerous types of critters in bug-world, with all types of shapes, colors and sizes. So I've submitted this image to BugGuide for an assist with the ID.
My best guess on genus is Catocala (a.k.a Underwings), since many of the underwings come equipped Ws, but I'll leave it up to the experts at BugGuide to figure out which species.
Wallingford is an ancient market town and civil parish in the upper Thames Valley in England. Historically in Berkshire, it was transferred to Oxfordshire in 1974. Wallingford is situated 12 miles north of Reading, 13 miles south of Oxford and 11 miles north west of Henley-on-Thames. The town's royal but mostly ruined Wallingford Castle held high status in the early medieval period as a regular royal residence until the Black Death hit the town badly in 1349. Empress Matilda retreated here for the final time from Oxford Castle in 1141. The castle declined subsequently, much stone being removed to renovate Windsor Castle. Nonetheless the town's Priory produced two of the greatest minds of the age, the mathematician Richard of Wallingford and the chronicler John of Wallingford.
Mathematician, navigator, and first mate of the Henri, Myles Bowditch is signing up for Eslandola and the East Trade Wind Company! For gold and country! - and the ETWC.
My sig-fig for Brethren of the Brick Seas. Check it out here!
Jack Hale. Plenary talk on the International Conference on Dynamical Systems And Applications in Atlanta (GE), 2007.
The battle of the Alps was a battle that opposed France and Italy during 15 days at the end of the battle of france (10 to 25 june). At the time Italy was lead by Mussolini who had the ambition to recreate the roman empire, in june 1940 when he saw that Hitler was managing to defeat France he decided to declare war to France too in order to acheive an easy victory against the falling republic and to annex the south-est of France. But even if the italian were 3 times more numerous than the french they encountered difficulties crossing the Alps because of 2 factors: the bad equipment that didn't really protect the soldiers from the cold and the french "chasseur-skieur" who harrassed the italians during the crossing of the Alps. The Italian objective was to invade Nice so most of the offensive took place in the southern alps but some also occured in the northern Alps in order to encircle the French. During 15 days of intense fights the Italian only managed to advance a few kilometers through the border but didn't reach the french main defense line, in fact they were quickly stopped by the small fortifications of french Alpine Maginot line with the help of the artillery from the big forts behind. For exemple in Menton (a french village a few hundred meters from the border) 9 french men in a pillbox with a machine gun and a 25mm canon managed to stop the advance of 5 000 Italian until the Armistice and abandonned the bunker several days after the Armistice taking the guns and locking the door. At the end of the battle the french Alpine army commanded by René Olry managed to stop the italian advance but also the germans that were coming from the North using the advantages of the high terrain and the few colonial renault FT's. The Italian even lost their main fort in the region that was located on the Mont Chaberton after french mathematicians managed to calculate a trajectory for french heavy mortar to hit it and destroy it (the fort was located at an altitude that was over the usual limit). That victory allowed Vichy France to exist until 1942.
This is a MOC I made a few monthes ago depicting an engagement in the middle section of the Alps (that's why it'n not snowy) between an italian light motorized section and a french pillbox from the maginot line. It's not representing an official part of the battle in particular, but I tried to reproduct an Alpine terrain according to what I've seen from a trip there some time ago (it was in a valley near Cervières next to "l'ouvrage des Aittes"), it's the reason why I decided to put so many plant pieces because the grass is really high in this part of the Alps ^^. I also built a small pillbox, a destroyed house and a few other stuff all around. If you have any question just ask because it would be too long to describe everything :P
This was my surprise (which is not one for some ^^) for the 100 subscribers, so thank you for following me and I hope you like it :)
Also special thanks to Anáhuac Brick Customs who helped me to draw a bit of attention when I just began, to Lego pilot for helping me for my plane builds and to all of you !
Golden Number Ratio Divine Proportion Compositions Fine Art Photography Dr. Elliot McGucken : Using the Nature's Golden Cut to Exalt Nature Photography!
Join my golden ratio groups!
www.facebook.com/goldennumberratio/
www.facebook.com/groups/1401714589947057/
instagram.com/goldennumberratio
Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Landscape & Nature Photography
New book page!
www.facebook.com/epiclandscapephotography/
Epic Landscape Photography: The Mythological Principles of Fine Art Nature Photography
Ansel Adams used the golden ratio in his photography too:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFlzAaBgsDI
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrOUX3ZCl7I
The Fibonacci Numbers are closely related to the golden ratio, and thus they also play a prominent role in exalted natural and artistic compositions!
I'm working on a far deeper book titled The Golden Ratio Number for Photographers. :)
The famous mathematician Jacob Bernoulli wrote:
The (golden spiral) may be used as a symbol, either of fortitude and constancy in adversity, or of the human body, which after all its changes, even after death, will be restored to its exact and perfect self.
Engraved upon Jacob’s tombstone is a spiral alongside the words, "Eadem Mutata Resurgo," meaning "Though changed, I shall rise again." And so it is that within the Golden Ratio Principle, the golden harmonies rise yet again.
The golden ratio is oft known as the divine cut, the golden cut, the divine proportion, the golden number, and PHI for the name of the architect of the Parthenon Phidias. It has exalted classical art on down through the millennia and it can exalt your art too!
Ask me anything about the golden ratio! :) I will do my best to answer!!
Enjoy my Fine Art Ballet instagram too!
Dr. Elliot McGucken's Golden Ratio Principle: The Golden Number Ratio Principle: Dr. E’s Golden Ratio Principle: The golden ratio exalts beauty because the number is a characteristic of the mathematically and physically most efficient manners of growth and distribution, on both evolutionary and purely physical levels. The golden ratio ensures that the proportions and structure of that which came before provide the proportions and structure of that which comes after. Robust, ordered growth is naturally associated with health and beauty, and thus we evolved to perceive the golden ratio harmonies as inherently beautiful, as we saw and felt their presence in all vital growth and life—in the salient features and proportions of humans and nature alike, from the distribution of our facial features and bones to the arrangements of petals, leaves, and sunflowers seeds. As ratios between Fibonacci Numbers offer the closest whole-number approximations to the golden ratio, and as seeds, cells, leaves, bones, and other physical entities appear in whole numbers, the Fibonacci Numbers oft appear in nature’s elements as “growth’s numbers.” From the dawn of time, humanity sought to salute their gods in art and temples exalting the same proportion by which all their vital sustenance and they themselves had been created—the golden ratio. the golden number, rectangle, and spiral!
I like how the model curves by itself. It does not need shaping.
Made from a 15 cm kami, 16 divisions grid.
Strobist: AB800 with HOBD-W, 15 degree grid, overhead, 45 degrees. AB1600 with 60X39 softbox overhead right, AB800 with Softlighter II camera left. Triggered by Cybersync.
"The Mathematician" (detail) by Andrey Zakirzyanov
colored pencil on paper
57x 76 cm
1990
My animations & videoart here - www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F07F0FC9A199F76B
Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have become anathemas to liberals, people of color, and anyone who believes all Americans deserve equal access to the institutions of this country. They aren’t the only ones, but they’re front and center for their refusal to change filibuster rules allowing a simple majority of the Senate to pass critical voting rights legislation.
Manchin and Sinema stand on the tip of a colossal iceberg of political posturing, spin, and dishonesty. At the end of last year, Washington Post opinion writer, Perry Bacon, Jr. wrote, “In basically every major institution in America, there are powerful figures who I doubt voted for Donald Trump but nonetheless play down the radicalism of the Republican Party, belittle those who speak honestly about it or otherwise act in ways that make it harder to combat that radicalism.” His list includes Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, NBC’s Chuck Todd, Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman, and even former acting Obama solicitor general Neal Katyal. All of them “elites” in their fields.
Bacon offers many reasons these and others are not calling out the Republican Party for their outlandish and overt power grabs, their lack of any substantial legislation (even when they were in power), and for their support of “The Big Lie.” But he culls it down to elites wanting to remain elites: to put their best interests above the American people’s.
When we talk about women’s rights (and the right to choose whether to have an abortion), institutional racism, and income inequality, the Republicans aren’t the only bad actors. The self-interest of the American aristocracy in academia, the judiciary, and the media is also problematic. We also have a systematic dilemma. Our founders designed our political system for compromise.
Here’s the Problem
During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, larger states wanted representation based on population, while smaller states wanted equal representation in Congress, fearful of abuses of power. Each side vowed to veto the Constitution if it didn’t get its way. Enter The Great Compromise, which is the foundation of our government today.
Proposed by Connecticut statesmen Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, they suggested a bicameral legislature, the House of Representatives and the Senate. A state’s population would determine the number of its representatives. In contrast, regardless of its size, each state would have two senators chosen by its legislature (in 1913, the Constitution’s 17th Amendment changed that to allow voters to elect senators directly). In addition, voters wouldn’t elect presidents directly but through electors to the Electoral College.
Our founders never envisioned the considerable disparity in states’ populations we have today (California has 68 times the population of Wyoming, yet each has equal votes in the Senate). Smaller states have a disproportionately more significant say in Congress. This also skews the balance in the Electoral College since the number of electors in each state is based on their total number of representatives and senators. Also, when our country won its independence, only White landowners could vote, further skewing fair representation. The 15th Amendment gave Black men this right in 1870. But this is still being contested today by Gerrymandering and state laws that impede minority rights. And women weren’t given the right to vote until the 19th Amendment in 1920. And, like racial discrimination, we are still dealing with gender inequality.
Early decisions about states’ rights versus the federal government’s rights also affect our ability to pass legislation today. The 10th Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” In disputes between the states and the federal government, the Supreme Court can upend this balance by its interpretations of the Constitution. And with many accusing justices of being political activists, the line between states’ and federal rights has become even more clouded. Texas’ law severely limiting abortion is on the Supreme Court’s schedule. And many are concerned that the conservative-leaning court will rule for Texas, even though Roe v. Wade has become established law. Our country’s balance of power has shifted in ways our founders could not have envisioned.
We the People
What do the American people want? In 2014, Princeton Professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern Professor Benjamin Page conducted a study of almost 1800 instances between 1981 and 2002, where public opinion was clearly in favor of specific policies. Yet, “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests [had] substantial independent impacts on US government policy.” In contrast, “average citizens and mass-based interest groups [had] little or no independent influence.” Lobbyists and the wealthy have more leverage on policy than average Americans, even though they represent a small percentage of the population.
Matt Grossman, Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University, says, “We have status-quo-biased institutions that limit (even popular) policymaking without bipartisan support and wide interest group support.” And, with the Republican Party more interested in retaining power than in compromise, we’re going nowhere. As former Senator John Edwards made it clear during his 2008 presidential campaign, “You cannot negotiate with political thugs.”
Grossman states, “Democrats are closer than ever to supporting institutional changes that would make the status quo more vulnerable, but they would probably need a sustained large national majority (that isn’t forthcoming) to implement them because many of the pivotal elections are on conservative ground.” Without consensus, our arrested status quo remains. Politicians ignore the will of the people. This is the failure that Manchin and Sinema represent.
Are We Headed For a Civil War?
In his 1991 book, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World, sociologist Jack Goldstone compared “‘selfish elites’ who ‘protect their private wealth, even at the expense of a deterioration of state finances, public services, and long-term international strength,’ as a troubling parallel to the preconditions of the French Revolution, the English Civil War and similar examples of state breakdown.” Working with mathematician Peter Turchin, they have suggested that the United States could be heading towards a civil war.
As early as 2010, Turchin predicted that 2020 would be a chaotic and violent year. Writing in the publication Nature, Turchin said, “In the United States, we have stagnating or declining real wages, a growing gap between rich and poor, overproduction of young graduates with advanced degrees, and exploding public debt. Historically, such developments have served as leading indicators of looming political instability.”
Goldstone and Turchin suggest what is apparent to many of us: “inequality, selfish elites, and polarization have crippled the ability of the US government to mount an effective response to the pandemic, hampered our ability to deliver an inclusive economic relief policy, and exacerbated the tensions over racial injustice.” In mid-2020, Goldstone predicted that instability would increase if Republicans or Democrats contested the presidential election. And that’s precisely what happened. Trump continues to push “The Big Lie” of election corruption.
The non-profit Fund for Peace’s Fragile States Index tracks these indicators and countries’ ability to cope with shocks to their systems. This index shows America’s ability to do so is deteriorating. Out of 179 countries studied, the US comes in at 143.
Looking Ahead
In Paul Rosenberg’s commentary, The center cannot hold: Manchin and Sinema are wrecking America — here’s how to beat them, he and Goldstone agreed, how can you achieve bipartisanship when the Republicans aren’t interested, and Senators Manchin and Sinema continue to say that bipartisanship must be achieved?
Progressives are getting the blame for this breakdown. But as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on MSNBC’s 11th Hour, “Biden has governed pretty much exactly the way [moderates] have asked him to. But the problem is that the way they have asked him to govern has been to slow down, not do too much, and we are now seeing the political consequences of not directly improving people’s lives quickly.” Manchin, she says, changes his mind every day. He and Sinema even blocked the voting rights bill, legislation they co-sponsored.
Former US secretary of labor Robert Reich asks why these two senators demand bipartisanship when they knew this wouldn’t happen? Why couldn’t they support a change in the filibuster rules to pass the voting rights bill when they had just agreed to change the rules the month before allowing Democrats to pass debt ceiling legislation? He says that part of the reason is a large amount of cash they’re receiving from special interests (much of Sinema’s coming from Republicans). But the most straightforward explanation is simply ego:
Before February of last year, almost no one outside West Virginia had heard of Manchin, and almost no one outside Arizona (and probably few within it) had ever heard of Sinema. Now, they’re notorious. They’re Washington celebrities. Their photos grace every major news outlet in America.
This sort of attention is addictive. Once it seeps into the bloodstream, it becomes an all-consuming force. I’ve known politicians who have become permanently and irrevocably intoxicated. I’m not talking simply about power, although that’s certainly part of it. I’m talking about narcissism—the primal force driving so much of modern America but whose essence is concentrated in certain places such as Wall Street, Hollywood, and the United States Senate.
Manchin and Sinema are blocking critical institutional change for their own selfish purposes.
So what can be done?
The Washington Post’s Perry Bacon, Jr. suggests three possibilities:
President Biden should issue as many executive actions as he can. David Roberts, author of a newsletter on clean energy and politics called Volts, suggests Biden should sign so many in quick succession, the right-wing media would have no time to make up lies about them, and the Supreme Court couldn’t hear them all.
Biden should use his informal power aggressively. “He can visit the headquarters of companies that pay their blue-collar workers a decent wage and offer parental and sick leave, encourage Americans to purchase products from these companies, and urge other businesses to emulate them. He can implore others to adopt and support initiatives that are meaningfully improving Americans’ lives right now, such as the privately funded universal basic income program happening in the Atlanta area or the historically Black colleges that are forgiving the loans of some students.”
Biden should leverage his popularity and influence in blue America. Forget bipartisanship. Stop trying to compromise with Republicans and conservative Democrats. “In many ways, Biden is the president of only blue America, but that’s more than half of American adults, 70 percent of the United States’ gross domestic product, the vast majority of its big cities, its most populous state (California) and virtually the entire industries of education, entertainment, Big Tech, and philanthropy. Instead, he suggests talking with people like “MacKenzie Scott, Melinda Gates, Ford Foundation head Darren Walker, LeBron James, Oprah Winfrey, and others with money and influence who are likely to embrace causes that Biden points them toward.”
Both Senators Manchin and Sinema are gambling our lives away. If they continue to throw snake eyes, we’ll all lose. By refusing to pander to their egos, Biden can open the way for significant governmental change. Americans voted for Donald Trump in 2016 because his message was anti-establishment. We were sick of decades-old election promises that never materialized. The GOP isn’t interested in bettering Americans’ lives. They just want to win. But if we’re going to change the status quo, we’ll need to take a vastly different approach. And time is running out.
Feel free to pass this poster on. It's free to download here (click on the down arrow just to the lower right of the image).
See the rest of the posters from the Chamomile Tea Party! Digital high res downloads are free here (click the down arrow on the lower right side of the image). Other options are available. And join our Facebook group.
Follow the history of our country's political intransigence from 2010-2020 through a seven-part exhibit of these posters on Google Arts & Culture.
"The Mathematician" by Andrey Zakirzyanov
colored pencil on paper
57x 76 cm
1990
My animations & videoart here - www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F07F0FC9A199F76B