*yikes* - you just gave me a free shrink session for the day : "what do you see in this picture?" - honestly maakes me think of those movies where people's mental state is evaluated ... love it! - look twice and you'll see different things ... not quite that type of effect, but here's sort of one that I did earlier this month:
@githaofegestal LOL Githa. I thought of this photo of yours, it is a good example of symmetry. I guess it's my mental health counselor background that draws me to those sorts of things.
I find the strong perfect symmetries a little too predictable. I really find strong symmetries that are slightly broken much more compelling. Like @githaofegestal Githa's shot above.
@jcarrollphoto Glad you liked it. @frankhymus I'm really fascinated by the instances of the fibonacci sequence in nature e.g. sea shells, pine cones etc. Is that too predictable for your taste too? I agree with you, Githa's photo is very compelling.
@judis Funny you might ask. I am a mathematician and physicist by training and worked in number theory for a short time. While the definition of the fibonacci sequence might be very simple, the result of, for instance, the fibonacci spiral is not by any means "symmetric" if you mean the classic symmetries of displacement, rotation, inversion and mirror reflection. Classic symmetries are static things. But the fibonacci spiral and related "regularities" are not static. They lead you on, in and down, at ever changing levels of scale. That seems the key to their compellingly strong visual appeal. As you point out, nature thinks so too. This spiral, and the closely related "golden ratio and spiral" come up in numerous places in nature.
@frankhymus Frank , yes the fionacci spiral is definitely not symmetric, that is why I was hoping it would be something you liked. It is very compelling and I often find myself looking for it (and for the "golden ration and spiral"). As a mathematician and physicist -- in layperson's language - why does nature produce this spiral shape? It even occurs at the molecular level.
@judis You need to ask a botanist or biologist. I would suspect it has something to do with the very simple generating function that is trivial to encode at the DNA level. You only have to have two storage (memory) "registers" and you only have to add the two numbers in the registers to get the next one. But it's not my area of expertise.
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@frankhymus I'm really fascinated by the instances of the fibonacci sequence in nature e.g. sea shells, pine cones etc. Is that too predictable for your taste too? I agree with you, Githa's photo is very compelling.