2013-10-10 Thur - Geometry in Nature 2

Geometry in Nature – Dornach Oct 2013
Lecture two
Thur 10-10-2013, 9.00am to 10.30am
Geometry in Nature – Tetrahedrons

Three talks to Mathematics conference at the Goetheanum
by John Blackwood
The first presentation considered the ideas and natural expression of line, foci on the line,
rhythms in the line and ended with the question that asked “in what context was this all this
happening?”.
It may have been noticed that there was also the attempt at something of a cognitive process
or methodology pursued. This process had to do with the breathing between the conceptual
and the perceptual – in an attempt at a reconciliation between the two. The world is not
divided, except for our consciousness as we currently experience it. This can change.
A summary of the second presentation follows:
Planar path curves

• This talk attempts to cover:
• A very brief introduction to some planar path curves.
• The different tetrahedrons that appear to be at the background the forms of the four
kingdoms – or some of the kingdoms at least.
• I speculated that there could be four such configurations, all very different, but
nevertheless transformations of each other (however radical) .
• If it was correct for the plants – as Lawrence Edwards contended – perhaps such a
basic structure would work for the other kingdoms too ….
•
• Why tetrahedrons?
• But why tetrahedrons at all?
• Because, just as I believe the line element is the core element in form structures,
these lines are not in isolation.
• If the basic form in space is the tetrahedron then this line element (in all the
kingdoms) must be part of some such larger form context. It can‟t be on its own. So
for the plant stem (a line) there must be five other lines – to even begin to get near a
tetrahedron form! Where on Earth (or Heaven) were they? And where were the four
points. And the four planes.
• So – as I saw it – the visible „spines‟ in all the kingdoms had to be part of a greater,
yet imaginable and thinkable, context.
• Edwards explored this extensively and fruitfully for the plant world …
•
• Plant tetrahedron
________ ____
©John Blackwood, 93 Warrane Road, Willoughby, Sydney, Australia. 02 9417 6046 jblckwd@ozemail.com.au, Morphology.org 1
• Edwards work had demonstrated the plant application to my satisfaction (more

later), that is that there was a tetrahedral structure that could encompass the plant
kingdoms basic morphology.
• The tetrahedron he worked with had six lines, four points and four planes as basic.
• Here is shown just the two real lines, one immediate and local, the other at the
infinite periphery, and both mutually perpendicular.
•
• … and with the four points added in
• Two real lines (black), static
• Two real points (black) , static
• … and two imaginary points (red), in
motion.
• Find the four planes (two real and two
imaginary) ... ?
•
• A mineral tetrahedron
• So I said to myself …
• If this kind of thinking applies to the plant world, surely it should, in some form,
apply to the mineral world too. Does it?
• I have not got far but think that the particular tetrahedron that works well for the
vegetative will simply not work at all for the mineral – but a transform of it might. It
had to!
• So what tetrahedral form will manage the
architectures of this static, hard, dead and solid
kingdom? This I wondered about…
•
• Path curves
• Before attempting to look at that, I thought to
review a basic path curve construction. These are
curves which inevitably arise when such as a plane
transforms into itself. What does this mean?
________ ____
• A graphic sequence may help to grasp what is going on in this process. This is
written up in Ch 10 of my book (Geometry in Nature).
• It is outlined here for just one case – and only for a particular case in the plane.
•
• Alternate translation and rotation
• This sequence of constructions attempts to show how a simple movement in an
invariant triangle creates an entire path curve field covering the entire plane with
forms.
• We see alternate rotations (of lines)
and translations (of points) … but
ordered by the field in which they
subsist.
•
• Triangle in a plane
• Select any random triangle in a flat
plane.
•
• A path curves emerges …

• A partial path curve begins
to emerge from point
infinitude A and line
infinitude c, sweeping
towards point infinitude C
and line infinitude a ….
(source and sink come to
mind).
• From triangle to path curve field
• This sequence of constructions attempted to show how a simple movement in an
invariant triangle creates an entire path curve field covering the entire plane – in two
dimensions.
• (In parentheses - there can also be a similar system in a point. In other words there
are two kinds of path system in two dimensions!)
• But what of three dimensions?
• I was interested to see how these path curves worked out in tetrahedrons (in space),
not just in triangles (in planes).
•
• Triples
• All these lines, foci, rhythms had to be part of a larger context.
• Planar path curves depended on the movements of point/line pairs.
• In space the curves would have to depend on the ordered movements of all three
elements together. I called these point/line/plane triples, or just triples for short. This
was mentioned at the end of the last talk.
• Throw one of these into tetrahedral space and how is it obliged to behave?
• One small picture may help ...
•
________ ____
• Pooh sticks
• We could think of the flow of waters in a river
or stream or creek or tsunami.
• A stick thown into the stream is obliged to go
with the current.
• This is Pooh Sticks bridge. Pooh and his friends
played Pooh sticks. Sticks were dropped in the
water on one side of the bridge and they all
rushed to see whose came out first!
• From the many swirls and eddies it can never
have been a forgone conclusion – yet each stick
would have its own definite path (it might even
be a path curve?)
•
•
• Basic tetrahedron
• This is perhaps the form in which we most readily
imagine the general tetrahedron.
• I thought to start with the triples behaviours within
any all real tetrahedron … here all the 4 + 6 + 4 =
14 elements are totally fixed.
•
•
All real tetrahedron

• The “real” one
• Lawrence Edwards once remarked too me that he did not see the all real
tetrahedron anywhere in nature.
• The background of this slide shows what is meant – for the all real form will have
four real points, four real planes and six real lines, all fixed and static – going
nowhere.
• This form will still have the possibility of growth
measures or rhythms of points and planes in all six
of the lines and can be saturated with path curves.
•
• Movement in the real one
• Further the thing is full of and surrounded by, an
infinitude of path curves, which will be determined
by how much point/line/plane triples move within
the space and connected intimately with the
________ ____
rhythms, of points and planes in the encompassing lines. And all in 3D!
• But we still do not see these curved forms in nature … at least I havn‟t yet.
•
• The really, really BIG real one!
• But for the mineral world these curves would have to be
able to straighten out – and become the linear, precise
configurations typical of the beautiful world of crystalline.
• How could this happen morphologically/geometrically?
• What would happen, I thought, if we considered an
infinitely large tetrahedron which was, at the same, a
perfectly regular one, an equilateral tetrahedron?
• Such a form is of course barely imaginable – in fact it is
quite cosmically universal … so I resorted to a subterfuge
to help with this imagining ….
•
• A model of sorts
• I built a shrunk model of this form – or attempted to.
• But an infinitely large model is – obviously – a total, even absurd, impossibility – of
course!!
• So I imagined the thing as if the four points and planes were radically contracted but
that the central forms remained relatively unchanged, or yet only slightly changed.
• This was possible if there was imagined to be a growth measure between each of the
two points rather than measures of equal distances.
•
• From curve to straight …
• If the points of the tetrahedron are infinitely far away then one can hardly put them
on the paper – but if differentially contracted then they can appear on the page along
with points mid way between them.
• In one of the lines I imagined four such consecutive points (between the initial two)
that were almost the same distance from each other.
• Then I calculated the cross ratio for these four consecutive points.
• But what is this “Cross Ratio”?
•
• Cross Ratio
• The Cross Ratio is a ratio of ratios. Whoever
discovered it must have been quite a person as it
is fundamental to all linear calculations in a line.
• Cross Ratio = (AC/CD)
• (AB/BD)
________ ____
• Six distinct cross ratios – Milne

• A brief extract from a 1911 geometry book by Rev. John J. Milne (not the Winnie
the Pooh writer), may be of interest, p5 of Cross Ratio Geometry gives:
• … six different values for the CR, given x is one of them.
• Six different numbers
•
• Cross Ratio = 4
• Let the distances between them be a, b and c.
• If a = b = c then the Cross Ratio (CR) will be equal to 4. Test this. Let a = b = c =
100 mm.
• If CR = ((a + b)/c) / (a /(b + c)), in one case
• Therefore: CR = (100 + 100) / 100) / (100/(100 +100)
• Hence: CR = (200/100) / (100/200)
• CR = 2 / 0.5). = 4 exactly
•
• Model – slight variations
• But if the two infinite points decide to become a mere 1000 mm apart then this
changes the cross ratio – but by surprisingly little. That is if one assumes that a = b
= 100 mm. Then c (or z say) becomes a little less. This is what I worked with.
• I found that c would need to be about 92.3 mm rather than 100.
• This led to a CR a little greater than 4.
•
• 4% error for the first step
• If again CR = ((a + b)/c) / (a/(b + c))
• Therefore: CR = (100 + 100)/92.3) / (100/(100 + 92.3)
• Hence: CR = (200/92.3) / (100/192.3)
• CR = 2.166847…/ 0.520020…).
• CR = 4.166846
• So although not quite representing equality of
measure, I considered it satisfactory to work with
(about 4% error for the first step).
•
• Model beginnings
• Where then to begin with the modeling?
•
• Special skew lines
• I built a miniature model of this tetrahedron form –
________ ____
or attempted to.
• This commenced with two skew lines of wooden dowlling, 1000 mm long, mutually
perpendicular, and positioned 707 mm apart (as calculated for a regular tetrahedron
of 1 meter side lengths – it only needs Pythagoras theorem twice over)
• These were spaced apart with lengths of threaded steel rod. This made adjustment
reasonably precise.
• Then three sets of these were made and were brought together so that the end points
coincided in the four points … next image …
•
• Miniature model
•
• Three pairs of skewed line pairs
• The full model was based on the four real
points all being 1000 mm apart (I meter).
This also seemed a usable scale.
• Each 1000 mm line segment was divided in
two and the joins of the of the skew lines
linked at a center point.
• Here I “cheated” because I did not want the
integrity of the metal rods broken and thus I
let the central lines not quite coincide. The
three lines (or rods) went through drilled
holes a small block of wood, a little
displaced from true center (by about 3 mm – see inset at right).
•
• Marking the growth measure
• Next came the marking of the growth measures in the lines. Initially
I assumed all six to be identical. I already had one point of the
measure - the central point in each line. Two further points were
then 100 mm on either side of this central point.
•
• Lines across the space
• I then asked myself how might the joins (lines that is)
of point pairs of the skew line pairs give planes at the
very center of this pseudo cosmic form.
• Working wth only one pair of skew lines, emphasised
in blue
• The saddle
surface become
very clear.
________ ____
• Next image shows all these three surfaces. I now used coloured cord.
•
•
•
•
• In the back yard
• Line complexes
• These line complexes (this might even be
the correct technical term [Nick?]) swept
through the entire space of this tetrahedron
– and beyond.
• Or did they? Recall this figure is
pretending to be infinitely large – so we
can hardly go beyond that. (How can there
be anything beyond the infinite – discuss)
• There was no beyond!
• These curves, or surfaces, were contained within this vast space. But what did they
really look like?
• I tried to get nearer to this to see what these path surfaces looked like – by the
device of filling the surfaces in with strips of coloured paper. This brought them to
light quite clearly I thought. See next, and next animation
•
• What do we notice?
• A Cartesian set of axes right in the
middle of the thing. Is Descartes a
mere subset of this global
tetrahedron framework? I only ask!
• At the very center three mutually
orthogonal planes and lines –
which we could call x, y and z
planes, perpendicular to the x, y,
and z axes.
• Three sets of identical surfaces
(red, green and blue) which – on
closer inspection – all turn out to
be saddle surfaces.
• A Cartesian set of axes right in the middle

•
• Saddle surfaces
• What was going on here? What were the surfaces doing? How did they relate to
each other?
________ ____
• I found the answer intriguing to say the least. A single surface (say blue) met two
pairs of the tetrahedrons lines in a saddle form.
• But there were two other saddle surfaces.
• This meant that each surface connected with the other two in the tetrahedrons outer
lines. While in the center these three surfaces were mutually perpendicular, at the
periphery they were (pairwise) at 180 degrees to each other. What a twist! See next
slide.
•
• A blue cross …
• The blue plane through the center is
actually a doubly twisted surface
meeting four of the lines of the
tetrahedron at the periphery. The
dotted curves show the saddle.
• Abstracted here is a twisted blue
cross form which meets 2/3 of the
lines of the tetrahedron.
•
• Integrated planes
• What further intrigued me was the
way in which each central plane
(Cartesian to all appearances)
connected with the periphery.
• An attempt was made to graphically
display this.
• What emerged was a threefold cross
…
•
• Three “crosses”
• The red and green “crosses” can be portrayed similarly – with mutual
perpendicularity at the center (when all three are superimposed).
•
• Three fold mineral cross?
• And when put together within the tetrahedral form …
• Note that each coloured bar of the cross twists 90 degrees from one side of the
tetrahedron to the other. Perpendicularity rules again!
• Another rendering is offered next …
•
• Did this architecture mesh with the mineral world?
Minerals
•
• Cartesians as a subset!
• It was this mighty architecture
which I thought might apply to the
mineral crystal structures on earth.
________ ____
• For lo, there emerge the Cartesian axes!

• And, yeah, right in the very middle forsooth, three mutually perpendicular axes
stand forth unbidden!
• And these three axes are (perhaps) the veritable basis for a number of the seven (or
is that six?) crystal systems.
•
•
• Mutually perpendicular
• Single flat blue plane through the middle, for an
infinitely large tetrahedron – while the other two
(red and green would be mutually perpendicular
to this one – and also flat.
•
• Seven crystal systems (or six?)
• There are apparently seven basic crystal systems
– according to (some) crystallographers.
• These are called, in the literature I have seen:
• ISOMETRIC
• TETRAGONAL
• ORTHORHOMBIC
• HEXAGONAL
• TRIGONAL
• MONOCLINIC
• TRICLINIC
•
•
Account for seven
systems?
• For the infinite and
regular tetrahedron to be
the basis for the solid
mineral form it would
have to be able to account for all of the architectures of these seven systems.
• Could it do so? Could it even begin to do so?
•
• Three systems
• Three of the systems were based on the Cartesian axes.
• To accommodate these three all that was needed was
for there to be different rhythms or measures in the
tetrahedrons line pairs – or so I thought (and still think).
• ISOMETRIC: The rhythms in all pairs of skew lines
would all be the same.
• TETRAGONAL: Two rhythms would be the same and
one rhythm for one skew pair would be different.
• ORTHORHOMBIC: All different rhythms, that is all
three pairs would have different rhythms.
•
• Isometric, tetragonal, orthorhombic.
• For the infinite and regular tetrahedron:
________ ____
• This form covered the ISOMETRIC system where, if a side length is a, then all side
lengths are the same: that is a = a = a, and angles are all mutually perpendicular,
also the case for the next two systems.
• The TETRAGONAL demanded: a = a ≠ c units.
• The ORTHORHOMBIC required: a ≠ b ≠ c units.
• How might this work? Consider only the tetragonal system …. next graphic.
•
• Tetragonal forms
• Two sides are equal, the third greater or smaller.
•
• Tetragonal, a = a ≠ c
• Taking only the tetragonal form – how is this to be
understood within the tetrahedral context?
• If my supposition that the side lengths are related to
rhythms in the tetrahedrons six lines is correct – it would
mean that (for the tetragonal) that there would be one pair would have two rhythms
the same and the other two pairs would have different (to the first pair) rhythms
within them.
• This is crudely illustrated next.
•
• Tetragonal system and “cosmic” rhythms in the lines at
infinity
•
• Local view of a tetragonal
unit cell
• And when one looks at what
might be going on locally
(that is, in the EARTH
sphere) – this is what one
should see – a typical TETRAGONAL form,
structured by the vast (dare one say COSMIC?)
regular equilateral tetrahedron.
•
• Other four systems – a work in progress?
• In a similar way the other two, ISOMETRIC and ORTHORHOMBIC, might be
accounted for by the infinite regular equilateral tetrahedron.
• But what of the four remaining crystal systems?
• Were there other infinite all real tetrahedrons with some measure of regularity? The
“scalene” tetrahedron seemed to me to be a bit too flexible – but who knows!
• Part of the appeal of this idea was that there was an innate regularity – at least of
some degree. A couple of other forms are suggested next. (This is not in my book
but has been hovering on the edges of my mind for a while.)
•
• An isosceles tetrahedron
• One such partially regular tetrahedron would be when two opposite sides are equal
but the other four are equal to each other but not to the first two.
• Could this be called an “isosceles tetrahedron”
________ ____
• What happens to the angularity? Are the skew lines able to remain mutually
perpendicular to each other – for it is not just linear measures we are concerned
with, but also angularity between the axes.
•
• A scalene tetrahedron?
• A third form could be when all three pairs of skew lines are not equal to each other.
• At this stage this is part of “work in progress”, or research if one will. Nowhere near
any conclusions as yet … just exploring ...
•
• And the plant kingdom?
• If the forgoing special tetrahedron was anywhere near successful for the Mineral
world – what about the plant world.
• Here I mention the form, fields, parameters and some examples of the next special
tetrahedron.
• Edwards called this the semi-imaginary tetrahedron…..
•
Semi imaginary tetrahedron

•
• Infinite and local
• What do we have to do to convert the all real tetrahedron so that it becomes the
semi-imaginary semi-real tetrahedron?
• One of the line pairs remains real, but one of the lines remains at infinity and the
other becomes local, giving a polarity. Could this be seen as a combination of the
cosmic and the earthly?
• The other two line pairs become imaginary or complex and hence can be thought of
as in continuous motion. They constantly bridge the infinite and the local. One line
pair rotates in one direction and the other line pair rotates in the other direction
(clockwise and anti clockwise – or respectively, deasil and widdershins in old
money).
•
• Barbara and Lawrence
• In 1976 Lawrence and Barbara Edwards spent
about six months in Australia.
• Erwin Berney and myself were extremely
fortunate to spend one evening a week
working with him on plant geometry, for the
entire six
months he
was in Oz.
This was education. I was 36. Who says you
ever stop learning?!
•
•
• My first path curve under Edwards
instruction in 1976
• In these days it was all done by drawing – unless
________ ____
one could afford $40,000 for an HP computer – which did little more than wire
frame layouts anyway.
•
• George Adams and Olive Whicher
• An elevation view of this form had already appeared in
Adam‟s and Whicher‟s Plant betweeen sun and earth.
• Adams saw this field structure as that which surrounded the
growing germ part of the plant.
•
• This was a start ….
• The mineral world might invoke the largest most regular tetrahedron imaginable but
• The plant world demanded a tetrahedron where a little bit of it had become local –
just the stem, and even this was only a partial line, delimited by end points.
• Lawrence Edwards pioneered this work, with the buds forms of plants, though
working also with the form of the heart and embyology.
• He worked with George Adams.
•
• Texts
• Edwards core text on this was The Field of Form (1982), republished in 1993 as The
Vortex of Life.
• The form fields he outlines can be described using a very small range of parameters
– yet these are capable of covering a huge range of forms.
• These parameters are:
• Lambda, this gives the profile outline form (λ)
• Epsilon, this give the slope of the path curves on the surface of the form (ε)
• Rhythm or stepping, this gives the spacing of the
nodes on the curves on the surface (a?)
•
• Lawrence Edwards work
• What the path curves, in space, give us is the
profiles of forms as they appear to us. Lambda
ranges from λ = 0 through to λ = 1 and through to λ
= ∞.
• This is only part of the picture however….
•
• Full range of form factor, λ

• λ varies from 0 to infinity through positive and negative values.
• Through positive there are the convex egg forms and through negative are the
concave vortex forms.
• This can be seen as a form spectrum, no lesss a spectrum (in my view) than the well
known colour sprectrums.
• The extremes are when λ = 0 (cone form) and when to λ = ∞, i.e.(inverted cone
form).
• Notice that half the picture is missing in each case – for above and below the end
points shown are the parts of the field which traverse the infinite!!
•
• More of the field of form – “egg and vortex structure”?
•
________ ____
• This shows more of the field

• – but is somewhat distorted
•
• Varying lambda
• How we might see some of these forms
in the physically visible world
•
• Varying epsilon, the spiral gradient
• Not only can the profile be given a form
factor but the slope of the curves can be
characterised numerically by the
parameter
Edwards called,
epsilon or ε.
• How we might
see some of
these forms in
the physically
visible world
when epsilon
varies (keeping
lambda the same)
• Varying rhythms or node spacing

• There is still another variation possible and this has to do with the node spacing
along the curves themselves.
• This can be characterised as a rhythm …
•
• Scale – almost anything!

• Add in a simple scale factor to form the shape definitively in concrete physical
space and the range of forms that can be accommodated is vast.
• They can range from tiny gyrogonites (less than a millimeter in height) to the huge
bunya pines of Australia.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
________ ____
• Point-wise egg form – model by David Bowden
• Typical…
________ ____
Plants
•
• Vegetative expressions
• This beautiful little shape that the geometry
inevitably gives for this local/infinite tetrahedron
can be compared to a great number of natural
plant structures …
• Some very few examples are offered – but there
could be – and there are – thousands.
• A few worked examples are shown below.
•
• Isopogon flower head
• Does the semi imaginary tetrahedron apply?
•
• Isopogon flower head – curve fitting (1988)
• Went for a walk in the New South Wales bush sometime in late 1980‟s.
• Photographed this beautiful little flower head.
• Did a curve fitting exercise.
• Observe the connection of idea with observation – next slide
•
•
•
•
•
________ ____
• Concept and percept

•
• Protea bud?
• Another wonderful example came
my way when a high school
student friend, Jenny Ellis,
brought in what we thought was a
protea bud – she knew my interest
in such things.
• With this large bud (the small square is
1 cm by 1 cm) I tried to take the
analysis a bit further.
•
• An analysis?
• I thought that if this form was an
expression of a path curve system then
it would have to meet a number of
criteria.
• If the path curve or S curve was true
then to meet the plant tetrahedron it
would have to approach the infinitudes
(or end points) and go through at least
two points on the forms surface.
• The practice was to first estimate the
position of the central vertical line.
•
•
• … continued
• Then to estimate the two end points (top end point was usually quite clear but the
bottom was a guestimate – but one could get quite good at this).
• Then to pick two points on a clockwise curve as far apart as reasonably possible.
• Then to pick two points on a anti-clockwise curve, again as far apart as reasonably
possible.
• Then a program was written which – if these were S curves or were path curves –
would put a curve through the two chosen points and the end points and give the
profile outline of the bud, all in one go.
• I had my doubts that this would work at all well ….
•
• Fibonacci numbers 5 and 8
• But I was astonished how close the two profiles were to each other.
________ ____
• The program plotted the other

curves (in both directions). This
was possible if the number of
curves was found to be a pair of
consecutive Fibonacci numbers.
And they were – in this case the
number of “spirals” in a clockwise
direction (green) was 8 and the
number in an anti-clockwise
direction (red) was 5.
• 5 and 8 are consecutive Fibonacci
numbers (in the series 1, 1, 2, 3, 5,
8, 13, 21, 34, etc, etc).
• An interesting question which I
have not taken the time to explore
would be if the clockwise number
was always the higher Fibonacci
number – and what that might
imply.
•
• Profile closeness
• Ideally the outer profiles should
overlap exactly. They did not
(quite) but were, to my mind,
convincingly close.
• It had been found by

experience that near the
end points , since they
were effectively
infinitely
unapproachable, the
profile would not fit so
well.
•
• Vindication!
• All the curves in both
directions were not a
bad match to the petal
tips.
• This was “cooking with
gas”!
• Did it work more
generally?
• Was this a universal
archetype for plant
form?
•
________ ____
• Cycad cone
• Another example was the cone of a cycad found in a
garden in a local suburb – this cone would be about
40/50 cm high.
• The following images show the process I adopted –
without comment – but similar to the protea.
•
• Cycad analysis methodology
•
•
•
•
•
•
• Just to confirm radial symmetry – the cycad view from
above
•
• Pineapple
• Sometimes it is self evident which
node points to choose to track a
curve.
• The nodes can appear to follow more
than one curve in the same direction.
• I personally have followed the
practice of the “smallest
quadrilateral”, with the “closest
distances”.
• What is meant by this? The
pineapples at right will demonstrate.
• I chose to use the lower
interpretation – which gave
consecutive Fibonacci numbers of 8
and 13.
• What were the top numbers? You
will have to find a pineapple and
check!
• How well did this fruit conform?
•
•
________ ____
• Pineapple
analysis (2008)
• 13 Clockwise
curves (green):
• Epsilon = 1.42
• Lambda = 1.19
• 8 Anticlockwise
curves (red):
• Epsilon = 0.42
• Lambda = 1.20
• Notice that the
curves depart
from the
pineapple as the
end points are
approached.
•
• Mammilaria cactus
• This little cactus was also a
good candidate – or so it
seemed.
• Top views are shown with
the nodes joined by freehand
curves.
• There were 13 anti-clockwise
and 21 clockwise.
• The plants “Fibonacci”
response was often the first
thing to check out.
• Analysis follows …
•
•
• S curves and profiles
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
________ ____
•
•
•
•
• Mammilaria
analysis (2008)
• This looked
reasonably good for
some of the curves
and nodes.
• But the end points
have been avoided!
• Only part of the
profiles can be
claimed. This is no
more or less than
usual however.
•
•
• Charophyte gyrogonites
• It was due to a mention by Peter Glasby about the work of Adriana Garcia at
Wollongong University on the charophyte gyrogonites that led me to look at the tiny
heads of these water plants, a form of algae.
• These little plants have become important through their fossils and the evolutionary
interpretations these can lead to. Whole conferences are held on these small plants
and their remains!
Animals
•
• Animalic -tetrahedron of the third kind?
• If this story could help grasp the architecture of the mineral and the plant – what
then about the animal?
• Do we have a tetrahedron for the animal kingdom?
•
• Egg profiles
• Many an animal starts out from an egg form.
________ ____
• The duck’s egg

• This is good to start with as it was one
of the examples Edwards wrote about
in his seminal works.
• He reports on two ducks eggs. With
rather unusual markings.
• On a farm in New South Wales I
traded a mechanical toy for a ducks
egg. We both thought we had got a
good deal.
•
• Egg of duck …
• Although the markings do not usually
show up on ducks eggs this sample
showed them quite clearly, clearly
enough to analyse. I have wondered if
such visible markings are even a sign
that the duck is having some problems,
as they are not frequent

apparently!
•
• Duck egg profile and
spiral analysis
• By selecting just two
points on the spiral like
curves we can calculate
that:
• Lambda = 1.25
• Steepness, epsilon = 1.018
•
• Birds Eggs
• Ostrich, Seagull and Chicken
________ ____
• Ostrich egg
• This image and profile (in red) is due to work of
Nick Thomas.
• As it is close to an ellipse (not far from a circle)
it will have a lambda approximately equal to 1.
• Note also the hint of a spiral line (Marked with
two crosses (in red). I did not get time to analyse
this but would say epsilon would be about 1 as
well (angle not too far from 45 degrees).
•
• One final bird egg … from Oz
• Can you estimate lambda, epsilon and rhythm?
• (show sample).
• Lambda can be estimated, but since there is no
evidence (in the shell itself) of spirals, no
estimate of either epsilon or

rhythm is possible.
•
• Emu data, and calcs

• Note that one does not usually
attempt to plot the endpoints, in
this context they are infinitudes–
hence inaccesible anyway.
•
• Mammals
• Most mammals are placental but
a few do lay eggs.
• In Australia there are two in
particular: the echidna and the
platypus.
• Although it was a bit of an
adventure even to find pictures
of eggs of these creatures I did
manage to find profiles good
enough to analyse for their
outlines.
________ ____
•
• Echidna
• This was more interesting (in a way).
• I could find no images initially. Then I
came in contact with Mervyn Griffiths
who lived in Canberra. He, as a researcher,
had written whole texts on the
monotremes. He gave me a photo of half
an echidna egg!
• Imagine my surprise when, in
conversation with him, and I showed him
my own and Edwards work he says, “that
looks like the work of the second
hierarchy”!
• At that stage I had no idea of his interest in
Steiner‟s work. He was a deep student but worked very much on his own.
•
• Echidna egg - details
• Calculations.
• Plotted profile.
• Calculated and empirical – synchronicity.
•
• Platypus
egg
• The egg of
the
Platypus, I
found in
an
Australian
Geographi
c
Magazine,
in a great
article by
Jack
Green.
• Lambda
was nearly
1.
________ ____
•
• Sea urchins
• Here was an
animal which
still
mimmiked the
plants
orientation –
yet also
moved.
• This example,
a. pallidus had
a weighted
mean lambda
of 1.226 and
an epsilon of
infinity
(vertical).
•
• Salamacis
Sphaeroides
• Salamacis
data/calc
•
• Salamacis –
predicted
field curves
• For a given a
fivefold
symmetry, a height and maximum

width, and a lambda of 1.486 and a
definite rhythm, this could then be
an approximation to the field
behind the Salamacis form.
•
________ ____
• Spine points on the test profile

• Inset: note the white dots of the actual test are very close to the blue dots as
calculated (yellow are merely intermediary)
•
•
• Software model for salmacis
sphaeroides
•
________ ____
• Then there is another egg case …At left beautiful

example of a double spiral in a clockwise direction.
Whose egg is this? At right is a section of the form – both
ends are quite different in their morphology.
• Reptiles
• Salty at the Taronga Zoo Monday before last.
• Crocodile eggs
•
• A near ellipse
• For the top egg in the previous slide a “standard” ellipse from the Word software
gave a reasonably good fit simply by eye.
•
• Eggs as animal precursors
• To me there was little doubt that the young animal world (or some of it) managed
some very good geometry – without the help of any computers or calculation! The
________ ____
formative impulses (whatever they are) in these creatures were very capable
geometricians .
• This was in the egg forms. I began to think of the egg as a kind of repetition of the
plant stage that the animalic can sometimes (that is often) go through.
• Consider the egg form as a profile. It is the very same as the bud and tree form
profiles. It has the same radial symmetry viewed end on (this is the same radial
symmetry of the plant).
• So the initial skin of many a juvenile animal has the plant signature.
•
• Linear in the animal
• But where does „the egg‟ go from here? What further forms do the animals take?
• Are they still egg like? Yes and no methinks. Something else is working into the
subsequent forms.
• So where to start this next investigation? If the line is still to be regarded as
important as a key element in the animal world – where was it?
•
• Was there a line of particular significance for the animal?
• Of course there was – the spine! Recall first talk.
• The animal spine is fundamentally horizontal
• Millions of species (literally and numerically) have an unequivocal horizontality.
• The spine also has two main foci, the reproductive area and neck, throat, sound area.
• Through these weaves the segmented and nodal spine.
•
• Animalic architecture
• But the spine is horizontal (or close to).
• It is also 90 degrees away from the
verticality of the plant.
• 90 degrees is the maximum distance that
two lines can be between each other.
• This jump seemed to me to show vast
distances – if one can use a spatial
metaphor here – between these two
kingdoms, just as there is vast distance
between the very natures of plant and
animal.
•
• Around the line of the spine
• What is it that surrounds the spine of the fish.
How can the spine – as it is inside the body of
the fish – be made visible outside (so to
speak).
• I became aware of something known as the
lateral line ….
•
• Start with the fish …
• And its horizontal spine …
• Partly because the fish could look vaguely like
a re-oriented pineapple!
•
________ ____
• Re-orientation of the pineapple?

•
• Can the Brazilian pineapple form become
transformed to the Japanese pineapple fish
form?
• Or does that go way too far?
•
• The fish and the line
• I noticed, looking through Rudie Kuiter‟s
work that a number of fish almost
represented little more (seemingly) than a
horizontal floating line segment.
• Sometimes they were uncannily straight!
• More straight line

intervals …
•
• Around this line …
• Was there a basic shape
that could be put around
the line (interval) which captured

morphologically the profile of “the fish”? An
ellipse form was tried out ….
•
• Fork tailed large eyed bream …
• This (ellipse) even looked somewhat plausible
around the bream…
•
• Sleek unicorn fish
• But there was no way this unicorn fish
could be claimed as an ellipse.
• The plant had already included the bud
form so why not the fish.
• This was explored a little …
•
• Compare with the bud/egg form
• A series of egg like forms were plotted and
the unicorn compared
________ ____
• Note the nearest comparison above

•
• Best so far …
• This was not too bad a comparison but
was far from satisfactory – and it still
assumed a bilateral symmetry

•
• Lateral lines
• By this time I was noticing the
pervasive lateral line …

• …. usually curved but not
always.
• For my scheming mind I
needed for this line to be
relatively straight.
•
• Eastern nannygai
• This little fish had a very
nearly straight line lateral line.
• Not only that but it was clearly
marked with a series of light
coloured „dots‟!
• I assumed this reflected
externally , the position of the
spine.
________ ____
•
• Salmon cutlets
• But was there a way of checking this
latter assertion?
• Back to the fish markets …
• And salmon cutlets!
• Here were sections of fish which
might reveal how the internal spine
lay with respect to the external
lateral line.
• How so?
•
• Lateral line on a salmon
cutlet
• Along a series of scales the
lateral line was clearly visible
•
• Salmon section
• Note the vertical bilaterl
symmetry.
• Note the horizontal asymmetry.
• Note the division of the flesh above
and below the horizontal line throught
the spine.
• There seemed to be some coincidence
with the lateral line, the plane cutting
through the spine and the spine itself.
• I felt justified in making the working
assumption that this coincidence was
real.
•
• Other cutlets
confirmed this!
• Mulloway and
trevally
• Back to the fish

spine
• There is an amazing website of
a company offering fish skeletons.
• I include a very few samples of those they had
on offer.
• Note that there is a moderate straightness in
most of their fishes spines shown here.
•
________ ____
• Golden scales
• The sheer beauty of the carps scales gave pause!
• But there was more … the carp‟s lateral line
was as clearly marked as day itself!
• Some points are identified …..
•
• A tetrahedron of the third kind?
• A number of factors could now come together.
• If the line of the spine could turn through 90
degrees from plant to animal then so too would,
presumably, the tetrahedron that carried these.
• What would this architecture appear like?
•
• Speculation
• A first sketch …. July 2009
• The Human?
•
•
The Phantom?
•
Was there a tetrahedron here too
– for the human? There had to be
… surely
• In some sense the human form
itself had to be the ultimate
tetrahedron, the one from which
all the other kingdoms stem,
through various layers of radical
metamorphosis.
• To look at the human form was to
look at an amazing tetrahedron –
but what on this earth did it look
like overall? With the physically
visible did one seek the invisible – as so often was necessary with all the other
forms.
• Was it all there before our very eyes – the ultimate revealed secret? Is this the form
of the Phantom – after the Fall and and prior to the Resurrection? (Because we have
not resurrected it even if Christ had achieved this at the Mystery of Golgotha).
• These were huge mysteries …
• As you can see I have not got very far with our tetrahedrons!
•
• A fish architecture
• My work on the fish architecture will be explored a little tomorrow.
________ ____

2013-10-10 Thur - Geometry in Nature 2

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2013-10-10 Thur - Geometry in Nature 2

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Geometry in Nature – Dornach Oct 2013

Geometry in Nature – Tetrahedrons

A summary of the second presentation follows:

Planar path curves

• Edwards work had demonstrated the plant application to my satisfaction (more

• A path curves emerges …

All real tetrahedron

• Six distinct cross ratios – Milne

• Six different numbers

• A Cartesian set of axes right in the middle

• For lo, there emerge the Cartesian axes!

Semi imaginary tetrahedron

• Full range of form factor, λ

• This shows more of the field

• Varying rhythms or node spacing

• Scale – almost anything!

• Point-wise egg form – model by David Bowden

• Concept and percept

• The program plotted the other

• It had been found by

• The duck’s egg

as they are not frequent

estimate of either epsilon or

• Emu data, and calcs

symmetry, a height and maximum

• Spine points on the test profile

• Then there is another egg case …At left beautiful

• Re-orientation of the pineapple?

• More straight line

the line (interval) which captured

• Note the nearest comparison above

assumed a bilateral symmetry

pervasive lateral line …

• Back to the fish

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