Cortically Magnified

Installed on the northern wall of the Monash University student centre (Melbourne) is a curious geometrical object. If you don’t pay close attention, you might think it’s just a decorative sculpture. But it is actually a functional sundial — conceived and constructed by the mathematician Carl Moppert in the 80’s. This design appears to be unique. I browsed through many photos on Instagram tagged with #sundial, and I couldn’t find another one that looks quite like it.

Charles Ives (1874–1954) is the quintessential American composer. Some of his compositions are as American as cherry pie. Take the Country Band March (1905), for example. It brings you straight to the turn-of-the century America: It’s a collage of folk tunes, patriotic songs, and marching band music, but you only hear a melody briefly, and then it’s either interrupted rudely or mutated gracefully into another. Very often two or three motifs are played simultaneously so you can’t decide which one to follow.

Fourier analysis says that complex patterns can be created by adding up a large number of patterns as simple as sinusoidal waves. To make the idea more concrete, I like to use the following analogy in teaching: Imagine that you lived in the early 19th century. If you wanted to listen to a symphony, the only way to make it happen was to hire a few dozen highly-trained musicians to perform it for you.

The lens is the component in the eye that reflects light. They are not always shape liked pancakes or magnifying glasses. In small mammals, the lens is very often looks like the chewy tapioca balls in Asian boba milk tea. Primate lenses are more like magnifying glasses:

Along the River During the Qingming Festival (清明上河圖) is a 12th-century classic Chinese painting depicting the imperial capital on a particularly busy day. Painted on a long scroll, the “panorama” is too wide to be appreciated in its entirity. The viewers are invited to view only a small section of the painting at the time and immerse themselves in the details. I have been interested in duplicating this effect with photography.