The same week I saw a post regarding lead wires grown in buckytubes. A friend emailed me to say that that very researcher was coming in from Japan to lecture on fullerenes.
BASKETRY
I his lecture he showed slide to illustrate how the 3D geometry of Japanese
basketry correlated with the 3D geometry of buckytubes. Certain facets
must be pentagonal etc.
ORIGAMI
After the lecture I presented him with an origami crane I had folded.
Origami paper folding, like protein folding, involves many different final
shapes that can be created by transforming a single basic shape
POSTSCRIPT
Considering all of the hexagonal sheets the good doctor showed in his
lecture, I thought it fitting to fold up a printout I made early of a
hexagonal grid I made from Postscript (tm) code. Algorithm becomes shape
and desired structure can be repeated and and nested within other
structures.
BEADWORK
A few weekends ago I saw something on Jones Education Network's Mind
Expansion University about the "latest trend in
miniaturization--nanotechnology". They showed animated footage of the
Merkle/Drexler planetary gear system. Since the energies had already been
minimized, the "planets" moved around like lumps beneath a semi-flexible
surface. I reminded me of the semi-flexible beaded jewelry some of my
friends wear. I would like to make a physical model of the planetary gear
system using thread and apropriately-sized beads. It would be laborious, I
think, beads, unlike atoms, do not pop together when you bring them close
together. This would be a good way of explaining the issue to
luddites--many of whom do such beadwork themselves. "Well, beadwork isn't
evil is it? This is just the same thing only smaller".
BTW if anyone can tell me how to *get* nthis footage i would appreciate it! Jones Education Networks WWW Service http://www.meu.edu/ was no help
LEGO (tm)
Using large numbers of the famous blocks you can make arbitrary shapes. I
have seen pictures of Mount Rushmour scenes rendered in Lego blocks. The
effect is naturalistic when the blocks are much smaller and more numerous
than the total structure.
FULLER TOYS
There are many science toys out on the market that will let you built
Buckminster Fuller domes and spheres as well as projected hyper-spheres
tensegrity structures and the like. A good aid to MNT thinking.
TEXTILE ARTS
Weave (sorry couldn't resist the pun) been doing it for thousands of years
and it has done a lot to stimulate mathematical thinking. Fine details
create larger structures with their own structural properties.
3D RENDERERS
Should challenge one's assumptions about What is substance and what is
mechanism. If you model a coffee cup you could then texture map it in
wood, marble, ceramic, what have you. MNT would let us print it out with
variations.
HTML
HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. You can write up a page which
could be placed on the Internet and then have a tangible social reality. A
good model for the culture of abundance aspect of MNT. Likewise for net
games like Doom and Marathon.
Regards
SunCat>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> kamchar@ibm.cl.msu.edu "It is only people who can't get what they want who resign themselves to want *more* of what they can get. Since we cannot be friends and lovers, we wail for more candy." -Bob Black "Smokestack Lightning" in _Friendly Fire_ p 57