multi-dimensions.com
Subject: Sketches 1 - 3
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 01:52:33 -0400
From: Flash Light lightart@flash.net
Organization: Solid State Light, Inc.
To: Carl Weiman cweiman@optonline.net
Carl,
I've added three sketches to the site. First allow me to say a few words about my philosophy of drawing. I was struck by your remark "a physics professor should be able to provide plausible numbers for sketches such as you propose." That level of accuracy hadn't occurred to me. What I had in mind was quick, rough sketches, not to scale, and without numerical values, intended purely to express my feelings pertaining to these ideas.
As I thought about your remark, it seemed to me that what you had in mind were mechanical drawings. I thought specifically of a type of mechanical drawing, an orthographic view. Unlike perspective drawings, where receding parallel lines are shown as converging, in an orthographic view the lines remain parallel. This does not aid the illusion of depth, but it does aid, for example, a machinist who wants to take a measurement from the drawing to compare it to the work at hand. In the same manner, I realized that an accurate drawing of a scientific principle could allow measurements, predictions, and verifications of the ideas expressed.
I will take such accuracy as a long term goal, but for the moment please understand that my aim is purely to express my feelings about views of the physical world, however crudely those drawings may appear. They can be refined later, as my understanding permits.
Next I want to say, I learned to draw primarily from Michelangelo and Picasso. (No disrespect intended toward my drawing teachers, who took pains to teach me the fine points of perspective, etc.) From Michelangelo I learned to sketch very faint lines, each progressing toward the line that expressed my feelings, and then when I finally recognized the line that seemed truest to me, to darken it so it became the defining line. From Picasso I learned quite a different approach: he would draw the same scene over and over, each iteration an experiment, until he finally drew the sketch which captured his vision.
I expect my approach here will more resemble Picasso's. As I realize the flaws in each sketch, either because a scientist points them out, or I recognize them myself, I will redraw it, and thereby hope to approach a closer representation of the truth.
Looking at the de Broglie graphic, I began to think about how I wanted to sketch physical phenomenon. As an artist I decided to consider how I would approach sketching a Theory of Multi-Dimensions. Surely I would start by sketching the individual dimensions I could see first, and then trying to composite those dimensions into larger views, until I finally attempted an overview of all the dimensions at once.
Sketch 1.0
I decide to deal first with one object and its dimensions. An object will have mass as well as size, so I thought about how to represent mass as a dimension. I decided to begin with an arrow, just as I had represented the other dimensions: the longer the arrow, the greater the mass. I begin my arrow at the origin, at zero mass. Arbitrarily I set its direction at 45 degrees to the others. But as my arrow progresses, and the mass it represents grows larger, I realize the dimensions of space will begin to bend, Sketch 2.0. A mathematician familiar with the Riemannian geometry of General Relativity might want to correct my curves, but I'll deal with that refinement later.
Sketch 2.0
Sketch 3.0
What troubles me most about Sketch 3.0. is that I feel the dimension of mass should look more dynamic than the straight line I've drawn.
The wave nature of the particle in the de Broglie graphic is very animated, and to me seems to express the dimension of charge. Somehow I suspect if I really knew how to draws the dimension of mass, it too would be animated, but in a different way, perhaps as a wave washing everything in the mass's gravitational field into the center of the mass.
At the least I intend to try reversing the direction of my arrow representing the dimension of mass, purely on the basis of wondering whether that vector will look more like mass to me. Next, I will probably animate it, even while the particle is at rest. Ultimately I may try to represent it as a spherical wave converging on the object.
But for now I'll just step back to look at these sketches, and invite comment.
Cordially,
Flash