#pythagoras
Today’s lesson on the pad
Showing a new guy how to stake grades
So we paced out a grid and pounded in stakes at semi-even intervals
Always picking up where someone else left off
Using their existing grid, we paced ~16 m in Northing (a metre is approximately equal to a yard)
Again, using the existing grid, we paced ~13 m in Easting
Then I asked him to pace out the hypotenuse, it was ~21 m
The grid was for the most part at right angles to each other
To show the new guy how Pythagoras came to his theorem
I scratched a triangle in the crushed aggregate
On the side of the x-plane I scratched 16 m and on the side of the y-plane I scratched 13 m
The diagonal received a 21 m
Out came the notebook
16 squared plus 13 squared = ~21 squared
Using my iPhone calculator
256 plus 169 = ~21 squared
425 = ~21 squared
square root of 425 = ~20.6155281280883 or ~21
Then I grabbed my stick to scratch out a head, body, appendages, and finally a circle encompassing my proto-Vitruvian dude
Never thought work could be this fun!
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 10:16 PM UTC
Attendees at the game of the gods,
come in three
Pythogorean sorts:
First kinds are the lovers of wisdom,
the second are the lovers of honor and
the third are the lovers of gains.
----------------
Ah, now, now
There is a demon
of the old kind attempting me
to lashout
my flagella and wipe my competitors from the stream
in this
only race that counts,
first and only, no second place in this race
to pass
through
into the egg, where life, as we know it begins.
All I brought, my entire being
as a cellulate entity with a will to win, is absorbed into
her.
Here, she perfects that which concerns me,
my will is done. I won.
Or did the others fail? Should I have slowed and let
another pierce this egg
and marvel at its works, while I am left useless forever?
Nay, or why would I retain this will to win?
Or this will to
calmly carry on, knowing now, this final phase in the course
of compleat being becoming,
slow and steady sets the pace,
right
up to now, k-pow, push meets shove and I win again,
recalling the joy when
I, the wiggly carrier of all that made me possible,
pass through your attentive staring, sorting egg-eye
maybe,
osmotical magical silliness wells up in me.
I was chosen. Or formed to fit, this
complex knot
lock meet for me, the key
ingredi-ant,
in ever stories provoking old men to grow on.
----------
Strange though it be, true,
Isaac Bashevis Singer inspires me, with words he left behind
for just this reason.
From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Bashevis_Singer>
Sep 20, 2019
Sep 20, 2019 at 12:12 PM UTC
Night so often brings a lack of force,
But in this other world
That hums alongside ours,
There is a golden line riding in the sky,
A horizontal meridian
That runs like a road,
Across the plains
Where invaders roam
And you should not travel
On your own.
So hang onto the line and fly
Above despair or fear,
Until you reach a darker cliff
And enter the realm
Of Pythagoras.
Along with his elfin helper,
Who spun the golden line
Steered by Pegasus.
And slung below the stars,
Thin as a spider’s web
And strong as steel,
He gives frail dreamers
Safe passage from world to world.
Above the winding roads
And forests of dark mist,
Those of Eriador, Earthsea and Hyrule
Sail like Odysseus past rock-bound isles
And Sirens’ songs and Loki’s smiles.
But what lies beyond those hills,
The dubious mortal asks.
To which the winged horse replies,
“Only those who dare
And trust me safely to consign
Will ever know where leads
The Meridian of Pythagoras,
The endless, golden line.”
May 1, 2020
May 1, 2020 at 10:28 PM UTC