inspired by the first Processing tutorial
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Aspirational biography 1
Jules Antoine Lissajous
Another French mathematician from the 1800s. Came up with Lissajous Curves, which are parametric plots of two sine waves against each other; one on the x-axis, one on the y-axis.
He illustrated these curves using a homemade "Lissajou apparatus"; a device that bounces a beam of light off a mirror attached to a vibrating tuning fork. The beam of light is then reflected again off of a second mirror attached to another tuning fork, perpendicular to the first. Usually the two tuning forks are an interval apart; and the resulting figure traced by the beam of light is a Lissajou curve. Fucking awesome.
a lot of other great stuff came out of this like:
lissajou knots
harmonographs
blackburn pendulums;
a pendulum hung on a "v" shaped string, creating periodic motion in 2 degrees of freedum
which, incidentally, also traces lissajou curves:
spirographs
Precession as a form of parallel transport
maurer roses
fire poi
also the math seems pretty well developed
p.s. speaking of dreamachines, how great do these look?
pps who can make it first?
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Chew on this one
It from Bit
"... every it--every particle, every field of force,
even the spacetime continuum itself--derives its function, its meaning,
its very existence entirely--even if in some contexts indirectly--from the
apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices,
_bits_."
- John Wheeler
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
I want to go there
"In the Blink of an Eye: Media & Movement"
Media Museum, London
9 March 2012 - 2 September 2012
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