Acme

See Serpent symbolism @ Wiki. >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(symbolism) How far is Genesis from your guy in Kansas? Why it's within spittin' distance. Then there is Gilgamesh -arguably the oldest written story extant- from which Genesis borrows liberally. Yup; snakes in Gilgamesh too. How about the kiddies & Aesop's Snake & the Farmer? Yup; still a goin'. Kipling's Kaa? Ssssssneaky! Perusing my link above we find no corner of the world un-slithered.

With all due respect, Rumsfeld is a jackass and what you are quoting from him is pure unadulterated jackassery. Please rethink taking your cues from a war monger. Note : both artist and purely objective rules are mentioned. So was Escher artist or scientist or a mixture of both or neither? I vote definitely an admixture.

Correct culture, but wrong character. Pre-Platonic, but no doubt a special realm. I'll look into it. From a library of hundreds of volumes I'm now down to a score of books due to a house fire a couple decades ago. Consequently I can't precisely check my anecdotal assertion but I believe my source was this book on Escher. >> M.C. Escher: Visions of Symmetry by Doris Schattschneider http://www.amazon.com/M-C-Escher-Visions-Symmetry-Edition/dp/0810943085 If not that book specifically then one of several similar works listed here. >> http://www.mcescher.com/about/books-on-escher/ Edit: Read up a bit on M De Sautoy and I misunderstood in that I thought he wrote a thousand years before Escher. Now corrected I can only say Escher studied Islamic art as well and while it may be true all the symmetries were extant, as I understand it Escher was the first to rigorously characterize them. Six of one and half a dozen of another I suppose. My pardon Studiot, but what question did you answer again? Sorry if I missed something. D'oh! Parting on an Escheresque note, here's a tiling I did under that inspirational chord.

Not matrices. As I early hinted, their progenitor predates algebra, even though algebra later had its way with them. Sleep away. On a side note, did you know that M.C. Escher categorized all the possible planar symmetries before any mathematician? Nighty night.

It -well they- is/are math. Now while they're still technically 'just' art until I say what math, how do you like looking at them? What feelings, if any, do they evoke in you? Comfort? Fear? Rage? Happiness? Tell me...

No; not the same. I have put up 3 different images. They share a common ancestry, but otherwise are as different as one sibling from another. G'donya mate! How else would we ascertain the scientific character of art if we couldn't look at it?

Great examples all. Well, we'll have to excuse Mike for according Dumsfeld with goodness, but Mike's a Brit after all. Another of my art pieces rooted in science then? Don't mind if I do.

Yes; all pails weigh the same. In effect the weight of the pails is not germane to the solution, whether they are full or empty. Substitute 5 rocks if you like. As to 'how can 5 be evenly divided by 2?' question, there are no fractions to figure out in the problem. [still, 5 does divide evenly by 2. 5/2=2.5]

An excellent pick. Not the right pick, but good nonetheless. Notice that on my drawings the vertices do not all fall on an equidistant grid. Hint: My submitted art IS what it describes. So, I have been assiduously researching my submissions for support when they are outed and Swan challenges them, and I ran across something only tangentially related but interesting to our topic here at large. Here we goes then: Applications of Mathematics in Models, Artificial Neural Networks and Arts 2010, pp 601-610 From Art to Mathematics in the Paintings of Theo van Doesburg Paola Vighi, Igino Aschieri source: >> http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-90-481-8581-8_27 Jolly well said. Thanks for provoking our caranniums. Roger. Coming back at ya. And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. ~ William Shakespeare

That's an interesting question because either will produce a wavelength and a bit. This is a bit like asking how many decades are there in 0 - 10. I really only posted this to show that I am not picking on swans. No worries. You found my question interesting and that's good enough for me. While I have you on the line, can you identify the scientific principle illustrated by my artsy drawings? (Not to pick on you or anything. ) No Sir; not map projections. It wouldn't be a stretch to call them mappings however. Mmmm...reminds me of a book I read some years ago called Mapping the Next Millineum...hold on...accessing... yes; here it is. 1997 by Stephen Hall >> http://www.amazon.com/Mapping-Next-Millennium-Stephen-Hall/dp/0517178575 Must have leaked into my psyche.

Ideally, no. Ultimately everyone has to agree on an answer. If I drop a stone off of a cliff, our answers need to be the same, and not be open to someone's interpretation. Nature only gives one answer, so only one answer can be right. Not necessarily is there just one answer. (What was the question? ) Anyway, suppose our stone off the cliff lands in a pond and as the ripples ensue we decide to measure the wavelength at some set distance from the locus. Is the correct way to measure wavelength crest-to-crest, or trough-to-trough? Further let's suppose I prefer troughs and you crests. So what is Nature's answer/solution in the context of our disagreement and how does Nature inform us of that [one] solution? Whether what is correct? I certainly don't expect you to chose some examples contrary to your position, but I do expect detail enough in them so I can contend. Speaking of examples, expectations, and contending; have you left off trying to understand my scientific images? I mean I guess if it's just too hard to think about what with all my hints, then it's easy tounderstand why you're not trying, but in all fairness I played with your thrown stones.

Well, it may strive to be pure but it is in reality purish. I agree it is powerful, but it's not all-powerful in-and-of itself nor immune to subjectivity.

Well, you didn't invoke science so no soup for you. Do you have a peer-reviewed study to support your assertion that 'nothing explains the human condition better than art'? Mind you I am only arguing that art may 'be' science and not that it always 'is' science. For example I do not accept that Mike's paintings in the OP are science, but certainly they are art. Any example put forward must be judged on its own merits and not by some broad-brush stroke of generalization.

I will be swayed by evidence, but thus far the examples are not addressing my objections. Everybody seems to be arguing a different point, i.e. that science can't be beautiful or must be lacking in aesthetics. Or maybe I've defined art in a certain way, different than everyone what makes something count as art? As I said above, I think art has a subjective component which means it connects with individuals in different ways. Which is incompatible with science. Art is also about the expression of the artist, and science doesn't allow individual expression like that. So science has no subjectivity whatsoever? If that is true, why do not all scientists agree on what some same set/piece of evidence 'means'? Moreover, do you really mean to suggest that science does not connect with individuals differently? My image is full of content. In fact as I implied, it was the principle way to represent the content for at least 1000 years. So that was really another hint and I'll put up another specific example of the general class of content. I still don't think you will ultimately be swayed, but perhaps others will. I don't think that makes any points for either side of the argument. Context is everything and putting things in a context that separates art from science does nothing to discount where the two do/may join. So, another example from my catalogue.

If you don't like statistics, then don't use them. Likewise if you don't like conventions, ignore them. In any case, nothing you present here is going to change/stop the teaching and use of statistics and that's a *real* relationship you can test.

Not magnetic field lines, but you get a prize anyway. Just pay $83 US dollars shipping and handling & the prize will be on its way to you. I'm going to leave what my drawing is as a mystery a bit longer, but here's another clue. Hint: It is a special case of a general class. If it's not clear by my earlier hints, it's a mathematical principle. I dearly hope we aren't going to go off-topic here and argue that math is not science as that is an equine of a different hue. Anyway, I am well convinced that nothing we post is going to sway Swan. His mind is made up and that's that. No shafts off my plumage. Back on magnetic lines though, as it brought to mind Hofstadter's butterfly. Just recently confirmed by observation, it flutters between art and science with abandon. source: >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadter_butterfly

Holy bat ship!! Well, that may be premature as I haven't watched the thing yet but I needed to post to lock myself in for followage. Accessing....

In a word, myths. Medusa, snake in Eden, St. George and his dragon, yada yada yada you pick the tail. Erhm...tale. Told & retold for millennia and no sign of it stopping. In my End is my Beginning. See Ouroboros. >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros

You low-barring me again? I think we can as easily limbo under social conditioning and its mechanism(s) to arrive at similarities in descriptions of aliens/apparitions. Once the first snake was out of the bag, every cigar was a snake.

Scientifically speaking, only for you and only for now. Artistically speaking, you tell me. I ask rhetorically, "how long did it take to translate written Mayan?" Was written Mayan any less artistic or any less a communication before modern folk deciphered it? [Note that my drawing is not Mayan.] Another hint: Knowing something of their work, I expect the following gentlemen would have successfully received my scientific communication: Fermat, Mersenne, Lagrange, Gauss, or Cauchy. Alas we fo shizzle can't know their artistic impression of it on account of them still being dead and all. So. Mike? Et al? Care to take a shot at the science of my image? The art? Come on; humor an old man.

Well, I won't tell you. Not right away at any rate. I'll give a hint while we all enjoy gazing at it. Hint: It preceded its algebraic representation.

Hey Arc, Acknowledge all. Spoiled it just to shorten the page. The Abstract on the pulvinar region only mentions its association with visual attention function so I don't see it supporting your assertion. As to the other article, it seems rather full of "probably's", "appears", "suggests" and other such hedgers as go to embellish an inconclusive proposition. Since we're talking about alien/apparition visitations here I suppose one guess is as good as another.

Here here! I was watching a re-run of Star Trek the other night and came to the impression that going back and forth with Mike & Swan is like mediating between Spock & McCoy. Either on their own seem to miss the mark, but the join by third parties of their approaches takes the day. Nevertheless, they each remain mystified by the other and ever ready to rejoin the agon. It would be more vexing were they not such loveable characters. Well, I think I ought to shut up & put up. I drew this by hand with a drafting machine, then scanned it and added some digital artifications. It is both pleasing to the eye as I intended it and rigorously mathematically unambiguous and informative as I intended it. Agon indeed!

I'm no familiar with growing olives, but I searched out some info for you that may be helpful. source: >> http://www.floridaconcerts.org/answers_to_some_common_questions%20about%20olive%20trees.htm

I don't discount the evolutionary holdover of aversion to snakes, only that it applies as well to spiders as to snakes. Yet, as I said, we don't see many spider aliens. The 'aliens abducted me' business is more rooted in other psychological phenomena than aversion to animals. source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080227121840.htm PS One of the links in the thread you mention here is an article harshly critical of the 'fear of snakes' meme. http://neuroanthropology.net/2008/03/07/innate-fear-of-snakes/ The reptilian humanoid-ish meme is as old as story telling, so social-referencing seems a more logical argument over any evolutionary/genetic connection. Reptilians @ Wiki >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilians