Message #1355

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Re: Other 4D puzzles
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2011 12:08:24 -0800

Don’t give in to mysticism, Roice. :-) The best antidote I’ve found is
this wonderful paper
<http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/writings/utility-of-math/> that
once-and-for-all clearly explains the connection between mathematics and
the rest of science including all those strange and marvelous
connections we keep finding. It is the single most profound thing I have
ever read. It is short and easy and fun to read. Read it carefully,
because like a favorite movie, you only get to experience it for the
first time once.

-Melinda

On 1/26/2011 9:20 AM, Roice Nelson wrote:
>
> […]
>
> As an aside, there is a short paper titled "The Story of the 120-Cell
> <http://www.ams.org/notices/200101/fea-stillwell.pdf>" which describes
> what may be the most insane of the connections between the
> dodecahedron and the 120-cell. If you interpret the 4D vector
> locations of the cell centers of the 120-cell as quaternions, the 3D
> rotations those quaternions describe are none other than the
> symmetries of the dodecahedron (and icosahedron). Likewise, the
> 24-cell encodes the symmetries of the tetrahedron. This all really
> shocked me when I first read it, and was almost enough to make me
> flirt with believing in intelligent design :)