Vesica Piscis--real Sacred Geometry

[Turtle]

I'd say Creative Commons is just right up your line, against commercial plagiarism.

 

Say, Tortuga, dime un poco, do you have any idea of what silly little point I kept insisting on trying to prove? :iamsmiling:

 

prove what? erhm sorry...i was off capering. but seriously, i don't know any more than you do.

 

i was reviewing the thread & stumbled back on some things old & some things new but old.

 

nexus network journal: architecture and mathematics online

...It appears to be sure, of course, that Villard de Honnecourt - around 1125 - was well acquainted with the pointed arch and its overwhelming static possibilities of the "built equilateral triangle" realized in ogive arches, ribs, vaults etc., huge cathedrals (see Prof. G. Binding's recent books on Gothic architecture!), which enabled not only a wonderful new world of architectural proportions, but also an "architecture of light" (as admired by Abbot Suger and Bernard de Clairvaux). The Arabic Euclidian architecture was able to show all 17 of the 17 planar symmetry groups (as idfentified by Dr. Götze's author in

Granada; personal letter of Nov. 18, 1998); it is still unknown how many of 230 3D symmetry groups (space groups) may have been "realized" by Gothic master builders in their masterworks.

 

This was possible on base of a "compass only" geometry (the Danish Georg Mohr 1672 & 1673 and the Italian Lorenzo Mascheroni 1797 (french 1798, 1828) have shown that Euclid's Elements could be fully drawn with "compass only". This way surely part of the so-called secret of Gothic master builders. Of course, they used measuring chords, rulers, straightedge, too). ...

 

I read the review of the book you [turtle]linked to, but there are no specifics there. Have you read the book?

 

I decided to read up on the architects of DC and I found this drawing on wiki from monsieur L'Enfant from back in 1791.

...clip

If the design realized the application of vesica piscis, the plans don't seem to indicate it. Or perhaps I'm just not seeing it. :shrug:

 

no i have not read it. i found it web searching and thought it was illustrative of the well-developed topic of sacred geometry in dc.

 

i haven't gone to google earth yet but my impression from mum's comment is that around or near the base of the washington monument is an almond-shaped outline. if that is the case then we'd have to try & take it's measure in order to say if, or if not, it is a vesica piscis. i'll have a look this afternoon.

[Turtle]

...

i haven't gone to google earth yet but my impression from mum's comment is that around or near the base of the washington monument is an almond-shaped outline. if that is the case then we'd have to try & take it's measure in order to say if, or if not, it is a vesica piscis. i'll have a look this afternoon.

 

so yes, there is a partial almond-shaped walk around the washington monument. it does not appear however to be a true vesica piscis as the overlapping arcs are not parts of true circles (they are ovoids), and they are not the same size. because parts of the almond-shaped path are obscured i couldn't get an accurate measurement. see google earth image attached below.

[modest]

I've drawn some circles:

 

 

Interestingly, the radius of a red circle is ~ 1.6 times the width of the blue oculus which probably indicates the designer was using the golden ratio.

 

The purple and pink dashed circles are true VPs (the height of the oculus is the same as the radius of the circles).

 

Cool stuff B)

 

~modest

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Burp!...ehrm....I meant BUMP!

More good stuff from the bone bin!

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Does all that ridiculous bickering need remain...ever so distracting...I've forgotten enough to have to reread again just to extract the useful bits.

Turtle, cleanup in aisle one.

[Turtle]

...I've forgotten enough to have to reread again just to extract the useful bits.

Turtle, cleanup in aisle one.

 

i'm on it like a scarab on a dung ball. :moon:

Edited December 13, 2012 by Turtle

[Moontanman]

i'm on it like a scarab on a dung ball. :moon:

 

 

Eeeeewwwww....

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Interesting...this just happens to look like a beetle if you rotate it 90 left.....just as interesting rotating it 90 right you get a sea turtle with it's head somewhere off the page....but more interesting is the beetle and Turtle's reference to scarab beetles. He thinks he's sooooo sly...Well I guess he is

[Turtle]

Interesting...this just happens to look like a beetle if you rotate it 90 left.....just as interesting rotating it 90 right you get a sea turtle with it's head somewhere off the page....but more interesting is the beetle and Turtle's reference to scarab beetles. He thinks he's sooooo sly...Well I guess he is

 

hard to say what the designer(s) had in mind at the monument and they aren't receiving inquiries. :shrug:

 

on the other hand, i did mean to slyde in an obtuse reference to sacred symbolism. while the scarab in this vein is not unique to egypt, egypt had an interesting take on it.

 

Beetles as Religious Symbols @ insects.org

...The capital of the solar religion was the city of On, which Greeks called Heliopolis (“the City of the Sun”). It was probably at On that Khepri, a scarab god of the sun, appeared in the predynastic epoch. Khepri might have been associated with the brilliant Kheper aegyptiorum, (whose name was coined by André Janssens, in 1940) or to the black Scarabaeus sacer, which was more often figured later. Nowadays, only the latter occurs in this region; the former being a more southern species probably due to significant climactic changes since Egyptian civilization. The name Khepri (or Kheperi, or Khepera) means “The Being, The Extant.” The name Khepri is related to other words of the same root, e.g. kheper “to exist, to come to existence” and khepru “transformations, metamorphoses.” Originally, Khepri represented the sun from sunrise to sunset, although the oldest texts describe him setting in the western horizon at dusk. He quickly lost some importance, and became confined to the associative role with the rising sun, which he maintained throughout the entire Egyptian civilization. He is represented as a man with a scarab topping or replacing his head (right). Khepri lost his association with the “dying” evening sun, to the god Atum, who is often figured with a ram head. For this reason, the ram-headed scarab represents the sun in the double aspects of rising/setting, or birth/death. To Khepri and Atum is often added Re, “The Sun,” who subsumes them....

 

perhaps the ankh is a stylised beetle-headed man-god? no matter, i want to post the ankh manifest in the twelve-petaled vesica piscis flower again so i'll say anything to justify it. :rolleyes: