The Number is Sand
Nearly everyone’s seen those books, posters, etc: “How many is a million?” Actually, if you search Amazon for books on a million you’ll come up with a whole bunch on the same theme: trying to express the concept of million to children. It’s sort of a brilliant idea, but I’m not sure how possible it is.
In my high school world history class, our teacher stressed the significance of the invention of mathematics. Also the concept of zero. Both are extremely important, and probably represent huge moments in human achievement.
That they are important is inarguable (not true, everything can be debated given enough alcohol time, but never mind), but they’re also sort of inevitable. Simple math, numbers, counting: all came from trade. Business men needed a way to differentiate more from less, to assure that they were getting a reasonably equal worth. The origins of writing can be found in these clerical slips. Symbolic representation does not come from a human need for art or communication. It comes from accounting.
As significant and important as it is, I can’t help but think it must not have taken a huge leap of genius to start counting apples and oranges (or really probably dates and papayas since we are talking about the cradle of civilization here). You don’t really need the deep philosophy behind math to understand that 5 is more than 4. Babies and animals can identify these basic differences, because the concepts of less and more are far simpler than 4 and 5. Much (most?) of math comes down to this idea. Basic algebra is not that difficult, and honestly has more to do with logic than math. All I’m getting at here is that however much we may have pulled out our hair writing calculus proofs, math as an idea is pretty intuitive.
MATH though is more than numbers. Math is about theories, about twisting common sense, about measuring things that cannot be measured (imaginary numbers anyone?). Physics is a practical application of mathematics, and a theoretical physician can tell you exactly how practical physics is. Engineering is the practical application of physics, and even they come up with some whoopers.
The invention of zero falls firmly in the realms of math as a theory, beyond the tangible. If you’ve never heard of zilch, it’s a bit more of a stretch to conceive of it, but I still don’t think it’s particularly miraculous.
“0″ as a number might be hard to understand, but the concept of zero is pretty simple; it is nothing, it is absence, it has existed and been related to in all of human history because it is death. As I said, the application of zero is a bit more than “do not have” just as 5 is more than apples (dates). At some point though, it is not all that surprising that someone said: “I had five apples. Now I do not have them. Ergo: zero.” (All inventers must say ergo. Or possibly thenceforth.)
I say this not to understate the hugeness of inventing zero, is is merely to explain how small the understanding of zero is compared to the understanding of million.
I can have five apples. I can have zero oranges. But I guarantee I will never have a million apples or oranges. Even if I do, if you see what I mean.
To talk about millions is as effective as talking about infinity. No matter how long you look at a book with a million ants, or a million cars, or a million people, your brain, or at least MY brain, is incaple of comprehending any more than the trollish concept of “lots.” If you were to show me a photo with an infinite number of marbles (not possible I know) I would think: lots. A billion=lots. Million=lots. 100,000=lots. To be perfectly honest, 500=lots. I’m not sure what the numerical cuttoff is, but I suspect it’s a much lower number than we think. I certainly understand that a million is more than 500, but it ceases to be a question of “how many” and becomes a question of “how big.” The group of ants with a million is bigger than the group with 500, but as far as my brain’s ability to count is concerned, there is NO OTHER DIFFERENCE. I can know that there are more ants in the million group, but it is impossible for me to see it.
1,000,000 is a number, but it’s not a real number. It is absolutely possible for something to exist and not be real. If you want to count the grains of sand on a beach, the answer is not a number, the answer is: It’s sand. The number is sand. How many stars are there? Lots. The number of stars is stars. That is the nature of stars, that they are uncountable. The fact that there are a finite number of sand grains (or stars, though I have no idea if that number is finite) is completely irrelevant because even if a machine counter told you that there were 94,392,347,778 grains of sand, the answer would still be: It’s sand.*
I would guess that it was far easier to invent the number 1 million than the number 0, but there is such a huge difference between knowing and understanding. In these days of unfathomable deficits, idiotic house prices, and rising world population, million has become common as dirt, and is generally shuffled aside for words like billion and even trillion. Ultimately though, they might as well use the same number, because it’s all the same to me.
*The irony here is that in order to explain the concept of infinity, all you can do is compare it to a really big number, while in reality the closest we come to honestly understanding a really big number is infinity, which is actually not all that difficult to understand, and basically comes down to: +1 etc.
**Photos by me, Srqpix Bruno Girin and Sanyam Studios.
Pattern Recognition
This week’s Illustration Friday is “Pattern,” and I had an old piece that fit too well to resist. I’ve never posted it on this blog, but I posted it last year some time on Living in Space.
The title I gave this at the time was EmpTV. The style is much more simplistic than I usually do, playing more a comic-y effect, and appropriately, experimenting with pattern. I like the result, though I probably won’t repeat it often, since I’m sort of obsessed with line and detail. Another piece that I found a bit more interesting was this one:
The theme for this was “zoo,” can’t remember if it was for IF or something else. I was especially happy with the squiggly patterning in the bushes in the back, and this piece, far more than the TV zombie piece, ended up being a directional piece for my style. The blog logo for example, was absolutely drawn with this piece in mind.
Finally, since both these pieces are old, I figure I’ll give you a sketch I did this week: (don’t have a scanner, so a photo is the best I can do)
This was drawn yesterday at a Caribou in some Chicago suburb. Not exactly sure where we were, but you can rest assured, if there’s a Caribou in the area, Matt and I will find it.
Normally when I sketch in public I concentrate on people, but since I’d like to do more finished drawings involving cityscapes, industrial pieces, and in general, less organic subjects, I took the opportunity to make myself draw the whole room. It took a shift in perspective to say the least. I started with the fireplace, and though it was relatively easy to estimate the size on the page, I was surprised at how small everything was. I’m hoping this will also help my background staging in general illustration since one of the criticisms I’ve received with my artwork is that backgrounds are a bit stiff (I AGREE). You can see what I mean here:
This is part of a comic I created (ignore the implication that I finished it, I only inked 5 pages) called Messenger of the Gods, to show at Wizard World a few years ago. (More Messenger of the Gods pages in my Gallery)
I’m hoping if I keep practicing drawing settings they won’t feel so much like, well, backgrounds.
(Note RE: a couple other crits I got on these pieces – The character looks like a boy because… he is a boy… who happens to have long hair. The character looks like he has a black eye because he… wait for it… has a black eye.)
Infinite
When I heard the Illustration Friday word of the week, “Infinite,” the first thing I thought of was the silly philosophy question “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”
I’m pretty sure at least one of the answers that came out of that was “infinite,” but I could be thinking of “is Hell endo or extothermic?”
Of course there are other ideas about the pin question…
“Firstly, angels simply don’t dance. It’s one of the distinguishing characteristics that marks an angel. They may listen appreciatively to the Music of the Spheres, but they don’t feel the urge to get down and boogie to it. So, none.
At least, nearly none. Aziraphale had learned to gavotte in a discreet gentlemen’s club in Portland Place, in the late 1880s, and while he had initially taken to it like a duck to merchant banking, after a while he had become quite good at it, and was quite put out when, some decades later, the gavotte went out of style for good.
So providing the dance was a gavotte, and providing that he had a suitable partner (also able, for the sake of arguement, both to gavotte, and to dance it on the head of a pin), the answer is a straightforward one.
Then again, you might just as well ask how many demons can dance on the head of a pin. They’re of the same original stock, after all. And at least they dance.
And if you put it that way, the answer is, quite a lot actually, providing they abandon their physical bodies, which is a picnic for a demon. Demons aren’t bound by physics. If you take the long view, the universe is just something small and round, like those water-filled balls which produce a miniature snowstorm when you shake them. But if you look from really close up, the only problem about dancing on the head of a pin is all those big gaps between electrons.”
- Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
I haven’t decided yet whether to develop the sketch into a portfolio piece… I like the concept but I’m not sure if I’m actually managing to draw the pins successfully.
On a Boat
This last weekend may have been one of the most relaxing I’ve had in ages.
Our friends Jack and Kim invited us along on a boat ride Saturday. The 31 foot sailboat belongs to a friend of theirs, so I was a bit nervous about barging (hah!) onto the trip, but he was a super nice guy and seemed happy to share the experience, not to mention his knowledge on boating. He put everyone to work who wanted to work (for myself, I prefered to stay out of the way, clinging to anything that seemed somewhat stable) teaching them boating slang as they went. I guess Jack and Kim join him on sailing races pretty often, so they were more or less already part of the crew.
Matt got a chance to haul rope and generally play pirate (no boarding though) which he seemed to enjoy. I love boats but am not so much a fan of, you know, water, so I didn’t help much until the end, when we pulled into a dock which seemed WAY to small for the boat. It was a bit of a scramble, with everyone running to the edges to push away from whatever permanent feature was about to hit the boat. On my side we nearly hit a large metal pole. I thought to myself, someone really ought to take care of that before we hit it. Then I looked around at everyone already frantic with something and realized, aw crap, that’s me. I’m still shocked we managed not to scrape off any paint or people.
We sailed from Elyria to Edgewater which gave us some fantastic views entering the city.
Other than docking, most of the trip was pretty tame. For the first few hours there was unfortunately not enough wind to sail, so we had to motor our way east. This made things easy, but I liked it better when the sails went up. The weather was beautiful, a gentle breeze that got us up to 7 knots (nots? whatever, and don’t ask me to translate that into mph), with nothing rough enough to make me wonder if I’d end up in the lake. In spite of my dislike (ok, FEAR) of water, when I was a kid, my ideal bed was a padded row boat in a flooded room. For some reason my parents didn’t go for that, but I could easily have fallen asleep for large parts of this trip.
The only slightly scary part of the sailing had nothing at all to do with the weather. This was labor day weekend, our destination was to anchor downtown and watch the airshow. Being labor day weekend, it was rather crowded, which was entertaining during the show, but extremely annoying afterward.
I guess it’s the same old story of one bad egg ruining the… whatever it ruins. In this case there were several. I’m not a boater, so I may not have the right to get indignant when people ignore ship rules. As a passenger though, I feel pretty entitled to be pissed off when people put me in danger. A good handful of motorboats decided they were getting back to the dock, and screw everyone else. They jetted back at top speed, causing wakes that pushed everyone else in all directions and all angles. I don’t know if we nearly tipped, or how close we came to the other sailboat riding the waves, but I DO know that the captain was looking anxious, and looking sideways and suddenly seeing water is pretty freaky for a landlubber.
Mostly though, people were friendly, and except for the few jerks, considerate of each other. Also, fireboat showing off=me acting about four years old with simple happiness.
We had a fantastic view of the air show, getting constant close flyovers. This was exciting, and I probably missed some of the show trying to get good photos, but I got some good shots so I think it was worth it. They did all the sort of death defying loop-de-loops you expect from the Blue Angels, but I think the flyovers were my favorite part.
There is something alarming about seeing airplanes so close to the cityscape.
The air show lasted several hours, with leisurely breaks in between. People on other boats were swimming and climbing around like the boats were jungle gyms.
I don’t expect I’ll have the opportunity to go sailing all that often, and I’m not sure I’d enjoy it as much if it got “exciting.” I wouldn’t have missed this weekend though.
On a totally unrelated note, I’ll be working on the blog design for the next few days (read: weeks) so the layout may be a bit… broken for a while. I know there’s a way to work on wordpress blogs without disturbing the online site, but I haven’t figured out how, so please just forgive me for any annoyances.
Current layout:
Eventual layout (I hope):
