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Ten ten ten -- 10/10/10 |
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Ah, yeah, you know me... always amused by numerical patterns. And these date triplets have been amusing me since January 1st of 2001. There are only going to be two more of these triplets (November 11th next year and December 12th in 2012) until we reach the 22nd century.. Of course there are other interesting patterns. For example, sequences such as October 11th two years from now. Supposing that I continue doing this for another twenty years, October 20th 2030 would probably also amuse me. (And using European style days -- day month year instead of month day year -- provides other possibilities.) We're enjoying a pleasant weekend with pleasantly warm days and cool evenings -- and it is a three day weekend since Nancy's school is closed on Monday for Columbus Day and I am taking a vacation day. I got in about three hours of yard and garden work Saturday afternoon -- and have a few aches from that -- so today my outdoor work consisted of about an hour mowing the lawn (front, back, and sides) with our rotary push mower. Of course I also did a lot of grocery shopping, made a big pot of tomato sauce, etc. Saturday night we went to a party up in Providence -- hosted by the guy who played the roller-blading guitar player in that 48 Hour Film Project movie this summer. There was an eclectic collection of people (including some who had also worked on that film), some very tasty food, and lots of interesting conversations. I'm afraid we had to leave far too early, but Nancy had to get up early to be the reader at her 8 a.m. service and she was feeling very tired. Keeping with the ten-ten-ten theme, I'd like to point you to this link to see the fascinating short film made by Ray and Charles Eames. It was made in 1968 and was rereleased in 1977. Based on Kees Boeke's 1957 book Cosmic View, it starts with a view of a man lying on a picnic blanket in a party -- a one meter by one meter image. We begin to back off from the man at a pace that increases your distance by powers of ten every ten seconds. At ten seconds you are looking down at a ten meter by ten meter square. At twenty seconds you are looking down at a one hundred by one hundred meter square... and so on until you see the entire Earth and then the Solar System and then are seeing views that are thousand and then millions of light years across. Then you quickly zoom back to the original one meter wide view and begin a similar process moving ever closer by negative powers of ten until you are inside a carbon atom. This fascinating husband and wife team were designers -- they designed films and exhibits (IBM underwrote this film and many others and their famous mathematica exhibit and engaged them to design the IBM pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair) -- and yes, they designed the Eames Chair.
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