9. Random walk of pi

The constant number pi has an infinite number of decimal places with no recognizable system within the sequence. However, the distribution of the 10 possible digits is quite uniformly balanced, at least within the displayed range from 1 to 1,000,000 positions after the comma. Each digit is represented by a direction from 0° to 360°. For example, each time the 0 arises, a line with a certain fixed length is displayed with the value of 0°. The end of each line is at the same time the start of the line for the following digit; the length of each line remaining constant. The result of the lines is a path; the so-called random walk.

The colored areas represent the distribution of the decimal of pi. These always start with 0, but with each succeeding step the values are increased by 10,000. These areas are laid around the most extreme points of the random walk. It can be observe that the lager the displayed range becomes the more round the areas are.

From Daniel A Becker’s web site

8. Sputnik, moon, test pattern

Television test cards, or test patterns as they are commonly called, existed only as a cultural memory by the time I was born. The card was a calibration device; its layout engineered by engineers. If the image on my screen showed a squashed ellipse, you’d call a technician, who would track mud into your living room to adjust the TV’s screen ratio until it was rightly a circle. “While you’re here, I don’t suppose you could add some counter-weight to that wobbly ceiling fan?” you might ask him, not wanting to clean the mud up twice.

The ceiling fan is Sputnik, whose orbit is a balancing act between two constituent forces. Perfect, spherical, and gleaming, the artificial Soviet moon passed over our heads, its forward velocity balanced against the gravitational pull of the earth. After the TV station signs off with the “Star-Spangled Banner” and broadcasts the test card, you go outside, hoping to see the new satellite streak overhead. Like the circle on the TV, an orbit is a détente between the x- and y- axis results in an endless circle. For Sputnik, x- is velocity, y- is gravity. Y- is constant, atmospheric drag decreases x- and the circle slowly crushes into an ellipse. The shiny little moon’s constant “beep beep beep” is silenced by a fiery return to Earth.

The ceiling fan spins silently now. Our affinity for the perfection of this shape is aboriginal. The sun and the moon are our oldest companions, and on their habits we learned to hang our most important activities: planting and harvest, feast and famine, war and peace. Man’s accomplishments can be traced as our mastery and appropriation of the circle and sphere, forms made by the universe with hardly a thought.

Post by Andrew Liebchen

7. Yuanlou homes in Fujian

“The tulous are found in the southern and western part of the Fujian Province as well as in the neighboring province of Guangdong. They vary in size, and can be circular or rectangular. The round form seems to be the most recent form, having diameters ranging from 17 to 91 meters. It is believed that they originated in the 13th or 14th century. There are a few thousand tulou in existence today, with as many as 600 inhabitants spanning three or four generations. Of these, perhaps a thousand are round, yuanlou (round building). Five standing yuanlou exceed 70 meters in diameter. Perhaps the largest is Zaitianlou in Zhaoan, with 2,4 m thick walls and a diameter of 91 meters (Knapp, 2000, p. 264).”

“On the outside, the village's bare pathways and buildings are of the same material, clay. One meets very few people and the tulou shows little interest in the world outside. It is dense and compact, with up to 250 small uniform rooms, constructed in two or three-story wooden structures. These are placed around the building’s periphery and ordered symmetrically around its central axis.”

“The courtyard is used for drying clothes and rice, for communal activities, and for children's play. It may be empty or filled with one or two-story buildings: stables, guest rooms, toilets or an outdoor kitchen for use in the summer. It is also in the courtyard that the ancestral altar is situated.”

From Jens Aaberg-Jørgensen’s web page http://www.chinadwelling.dk/

6. Homes of harmony

“The past has been the age of struggle. Contest between man and man, nation and nation, has everywhere been exhibited. And it can hardly be said, even yet, that humanity has an abiding place, or a continual city. But a new order of society is now being ushered into existence. New forms of life and action will appear. There will be less of isolation—of mere individualism; there will be more of association, of co-operation—exhibiting the harmonious GROUP-LIFE. And finer offspring, also, manifesting the finer aspirations, will be produced through the aid of these finer conditions.
The new order of society will call for NEW ARCHITECTURE, corresponding to its wants, its aspirations. Now, nature exhibits variety. It also manifests unity. In a very prominent way, and as one of her main features, nature presents CIRCULARITY OF FORM. Wherever the human eye beholds nature, it marks that interesting phenomenon. The forests, the earth, the planets, and, in short, all the heavenly bodies exhibit circularity of form.

These diagrams may be intended to turn the attention of the public mind to new forms, not only of structure for the individual or isolated family, but for unitary edifices; also for the organisation of CIRCULAR CITIES.”


From Simon Crosby Hewitt, 22 Tremont Street, Boston, May 1st, 1856

To Robert Owen and others, members of the Congress to be assembled in London, England, 14th May, 1856, to discuss principles and measures for the Reformation of the World.