Category Archives: art

The dreadful apport

Vrishchika had just finished her work on the diagnosis and possible treatment plan for a pediatric neurological patient on whom she was consulted. She had inferred that the child’s condition arose from a mutation in the TANC2 gene and it … Continue reading

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Some poems

Below are some poems in English by our brother. He sends us his compositions in a much more transient medium making them hard to preserve or share. Hence, we decided to anthologize those we could recover and present them here … Continue reading

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Indo-European expansions and iconography: revisiting the anthropomorphic stelae

Was there an early Indo-European iconography? The anthropomorphic stelae There is no linguistic evidence for the presence of iconic or temple worship among the early Indo-Europeans. However, after their migrations, when they settled in the lands of sedentary peoples, they … Continue reading

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Turagapadādi

This note stems from a recent conversation with a friend, where he pointed out that the graph representing all possible positions the horse (knight) can take on the chessboard from a given starting square produces interesting graphs. It struck us … Continue reading

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Generating simple radially symmetric art

Many people experience beauty in structures with bilateral, radial and rotational symmetries with or without recursion. The recursive or nested structure are the foundation of the beauty in fractal form, the generation of which has become increasingly easy for the … Continue reading

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The phantoms of the bone-pipe-2

Vidrum had been introduced to a synesthetic patient by a neurologist colleague. The patient’s manifestation of synesthesia left a rather profound impact on him; thus, when he had a break of an hour in his duties, wanting to explore the … Continue reading

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Making an illustrated Nakṣatra-sūkta and finding the constellation for a point in the sky

The illustrated Nakṣatra-sūkta Towards the latter phase of the Vedic age, multiple traditions independently composed sūkta-s that invoked the pantheon in association with their home nakṣatra-s as part of the śrauta Nakṣatreṣṭi or related gṛhya homa-s. Of these oldest and … Continue reading

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Modulo rugs of 3D functions

Consider a 3D function . Now evaluate it at each point of a integer lattice grid. Compute corresponding to each point and plot it as a color defined by some palette that suits your aesthetic. The consequence is a what … Continue reading

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A guilloche-like trigonometric tangle

Coprimality, i.e., the situation where the GCD of 2 integers is 1 is one of the fundamental expressions of complexity. In that situation, two numbers can never contain the other within themselves or in multiples of them by numbers smaller … Continue reading

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The tale of the dolmen-dweller

The exams were over and the last semester of toil was all that stood between Vidrum and the dim glimmer he saw at the end of his metaphorical tunnel. He finally had some free time that he wished to savor … Continue reading

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The aftermath: A polynomial equation

This is merely the tailpiece to the last tale of the strange hauntings. A reader may wonder why expend so many words on a high school problem. While the ball could have fitted into the socket, it rolled away. As … Continue reading

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The blue bottle and the talent show

This story itself is haunted. The deaths Seeing Vidrum intently gaze at something on his phone with an expression of near disbelief Kalakausha asked: “Vidrum, what are you looking at? We need to be leaving shortly. We have to buy … Continue reading

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The minimal triangle circumscribing a semicircle

Consider a fixed semicircle with center at and radius . Let be the isosceles triangle which circumscribes it (Figure 1). Figure 1 What will be the characteristics of the minimal form of the said triangle, i.e. triangle with minimum perimeter, … Continue reading

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Leaves from the scrapbook-4

As described here these entries are from the scrapbook of the second of the caturbhaginī, Vrishchika. Entry 1; kāmāturā, year Siddhārthin of the first cycle: Indrasena departed for grad school last week and I am feeling a bit of loneliness … Continue reading

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Packing constants for polygonal fractal maps

Among the very first programs which we wrote in our childhood was one to generate the famous Sierpinski triangle as an attractor using the “Chaos Game” algorithm of Barnsley. A couple of years later we returned to it generalize it … Continue reading

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Creating patterns through matrix expansion

People who are seriously interested in emergent complexity and pattern formation might at some point discover matrix expansion for themselves. It is a version of string rewriting that allows one to create complex patterns. For me, the inspiration came from … Continue reading

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A dinnertime conversation

A complete version of this apolog will currently not be visible to the public. Things had cooled off a bit on the political front after the assassination of the Prime Minister Pratap Simha by a massed drone attack. On the … Continue reading

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The second strike

PDF version Childhood Thrice a week, starting Fridays, Lootika’s mother taught her daughters mantra-siddhānta after dinner. She had covered the praxis of the secret mantra-s of the Vīṇāśikhā and had moved on to relevant sections of the Jayadratha-yāmala and the … Continue reading

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The incredible beauty of certain Hamiltonian mappings

In our teens we studied Hamiltonian functions a little bit as part of our attempt to understand classical and quantum physics. A byproduct of it was a superficial interest in the geometry of some of the mappings arising from such … Continue reading

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Triangles, Hexes and Cubes

One philosophical question which we have often ponder about is: Are numbers “real”? One way to approach this question is via figurate numbers, where numbers directly manifest as very tangible geometry. This idea has deep roots in our tradition: as … Continue reading

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The Satija-Ketoja system

Satija and Ketoja discovered an interesting dynamical system in course of the study of the Schrödinger equation for one electron in a two dimensional periodic lattice on a uniform magnetic field. While this equation and its variants have several uses … Continue reading

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Some simple maps specifying strange attractors

This note may be read a continuation of: Some reminiscences of our study of chaotic maps-2 While the story of the chaotic 2D attractors began with the simple-looking maps of Henon and Lozi, by the early 1990s the high-point was … Continue reading

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Citrabhānu’s cubes

The Hindus unlike their yavana cousins preferred algebra to geometry. Yet on occasions they could indulge in geometric games for demostrating proofs of algebraic relations. We see a bit of this in the Āryabhaṭa school and the great Bhāskara-II, but … Continue reading

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The apparition of the Scottish surgeon

On a late summer evening, at the twilight hour, Somakhya accompanied by Lootika met Vidrum outside his home. Vidrum was supposed to show Somakhya something special he had found during a visit to the limestone excavations near his ancestral village. … Continue reading

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The Meru and Nārāyaṇa’s cows: Words and fractals

The fractals described herein are based on and inspired by the work of the mathematicians Rauzy, Mendes-France, Monnerot and Knuth. Some their works, especially the first of them, are dense with formalism. Here we present in simple terms the means … Continue reading

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Hofstadter and Nārāyaṇa: connections across space and time

The scientist-philosopher Douglas Hofstadter presents an interesting single-seeded sequence H in his book ‘Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid’. It is generated by the recurrence relation, where …(1) Working it out one can see that it takes the form: … Continue reading

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Wisdom from a tag system

The case of the mathematician Emil Post, like that of several others, indicates how the boundary between mania and mathematics can be a thin one. Nevertheless, Post discovered some rather interesting things that were to have fundamental implications the theory … Continue reading

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Median and pedal triangles and derived fractals: an introductory account

It is rather easily seen that joining the midpoints of the sides of a triangle yields four congruent triangles that in turn are similar to the original triangle (Figure 1). This figure might be used to provided a self-evident geometric … Continue reading

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Means and conics

By the time one reaches high school one learns that: (i) there are four means that one might find some use of in life (I know there are more though they are hardly used) – the arithmetic mean which is … Continue reading

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The square root spiral and the Gamma function: entwined analogies

The topic discussed here is something on which considerable serious mathematical literature has published by P.J Davis, W. Gautschi and others. This partly historical narration is just a personal account of our journey through the same as a non-mathematician. As … Continue reading

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Journeying through the fractal slopes of mount Meru with two-seeded recursive sequences

The Hindus have been fascinated by sequences and series from the beginning of their civilizational memory recorded in the Veda. This continues down to the medieval mathematician Nārāyaṇa paṇḍita, who discovered a general formula (sāmāsika paṅkti) that can be to obtain the … Continue reading

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bhujā-koṭi-karṇa-nyāyaḥ koṭijyā-nyāyaś ca

bhujā-koṭi-karṇa-nyāyaḥ koṭijyā-nyāyaḥ

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The two squares theorem

I do not know who might have discovered this simple relationship first. I stumbled upon it while drawing figures in the notebook during a seminar. Take any two squares such that they are joined at one side and the two … Continue reading

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Constructing a regular heptagon with hyperbola and parabola

There is little doubt that Archimedes was one of the greatest yavana intellectuals. He would also figure in any list of the greatest mathematician-scientists of all times. His work on the construction of a regular heptagon has not survived the … Continue reading

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Infinite bisections required for trisection of an angle

Figure 1: Self-evident demonstration of Figure 2: Application of the same as serial bisections to trisect the angle. In the example chosen here we have . In ten steps we get to which is a pretty close, though in principle … Continue reading

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Sine rugs

Consider a square lattice with uniform vertical and horizontal spacing of a quantum . This can be represented as an array of complex numbers of the form: . For our purposes we chose . Thus the lattice comprises of all … Continue reading

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Doubling the cube with ellipses

The problem of doubling of the cube which emerged in the context of the doubling of the cubical altar of the great god Apollo cannot be solved using just a straight-edge and a compass. It needs one to construct a … Continue reading

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The magic of the deva-ogdoad

Classical Hindu tradition holds that the ogdoad of deva-s corresponding to their directions is: Indra: East; Agni: Southeast; Yama: South; Nirṛti: Southwest; Varuṇa: West; Vāyu: Northwest; Kubera: North; Īśāna: Northeast. The central position might be occupied in certain traditions by … Continue reading

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Trigonometric tangles-3: the fractals

See also: https://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/the-astroid-the-deltoid-and-the-fish-within-the-fish/ This exploration began in days of youth shortly after we learned about complex numbers. It culminated only much later in adulthood when we discovered for ourselves a class of fractal curves related to a celebrated curve discovered … Continue reading

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Trigonometric tangles-2

We had earlier described our exploration of the spirograph, hypocycloids, epicycloids and related curves. In course of our study of the śaiva tantra-s of the kaula tradition we started thinking about a remarkable piece of imagery mentioned in them. Tantra-s … Continue reading

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Trigonometric tangles

Let us define a define the trigonometric tangle as the following parametric function: where can be a rational number or an irrational number. and are any real number. If is a rational number and then we get a tangle petals … Continue reading

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Deliberations on richness and beauty: discovery of some multi-parameter iterative maps

As we have explained in the earlier notes (1, 2, 3), the second major factor in our exploration of 2D strange attractors maps, IFS and other fractals was the aesthetic experience they produced. Around that time we came across a … Continue reading

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Some reminiscences of our study of chaotic maps-2

Continued from part-1 The second two dimensional map we studied in our early days was that of Lozi: where and are constants. It becomes immediately evident that this map is conceptually similar to the Henon map, using the absolute value … Continue reading

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Some elementary lessons from iterative fractal maps

The famous Sierpinski gasket was one of the first fractals we wrote code for when we got access to a computer. It impressed us enormously that an intricate object with self-similarity over all scales could be generated by a rather … Continue reading

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Some reminiscences of our study of chaotic maps-1

Starting in our teens, we began our exploration of chaotic (strange) attractors emerging from simple iterative maps, numerical solution of ordinary differential equations and other fractals inspired by the work of Benoit Mandelbrot. It led us in two directions. First, … Continue reading

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Paper folding, Sundara Rao and geometrical constructions

Paper folding, which we shall hereinafter refer to as origami without further discussion on the correctness of the usage, is believed to have had a long history in Japan. Some believe that some primitive form of origami might have been … Continue reading

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The professor’s war

It was the end of his work week. Vidrum came to the office of Vrishchika of long tresses; she had just started her lab at the medical school. Vrishchika put on her gloves and handed Vidrum a box: “Here is … Continue reading

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Some lessons we learned from 3-color totalistic cellular automata

Cellular automata (CA) have attracted people’s attention to different degrees over the past several decades since the early work of pioneers like Ulam and von Neumann. Remarkably von Neumann played with his earliest versions of CA using a graph paper … Continue reading

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Ramanujan’s second construction for the approximate squaring of a circle

To experience the greatness of great men one has to relive or redo some acts of theirs to the best of ones ability. In ones youth such enactments might inspire one to make a bid for greatness. Whether this happens … Continue reading

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Some meanderings among golden stuff-2

Related stuff: Golden Ratio-0 Golden Ratio-1 If the golden ratio can fascinate erudite men of high IQ then what to say of simpletons like us. Hence, we shall here talk about some more trivia in this regard. The golden ratio … Continue reading

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Knotting a string: line, parabola, conchoid and knot

The basic construction In course of studying various methods of constructing conics we stumbled upon a means of using the relationship between uniform circular motion (UCM) and simple harmonic motion (SHM) to construct four distinct loci with common procedure. They … Continue reading

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Leaves from the scrapbook

There were extensive memoirs in the form of electronic scrapbooks of Somakhya, Lootika and some members of their circle. Those in the know read the available excerpts due to matters of considerable interest being recorded in them. Other parts were … Continue reading

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A journey through fractal objects

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śūlapuruṣasya vicāraḥ

Somakhya’s cousin Babhru and his family was visiting him during the vacation before they were to join university. After lunch he convinced Vidrum and Sharvamanyu to come over to his house when they got the chance for he thought more … Continue reading

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Mysterious fractal polyhedra

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A golden construction

Anyone with even a small fancy for geometrical matters would have at some point in their lives played with the golden ratio (). Indeed, we too have had our share of fun and games with the golden ratio. In course … Continue reading

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Nālika-s

The first week of college had ended. Vidrum was returning from an eatery with his new friend Manjukeshi after an early supper. The two of them were rather surprised by the ferocious competitiveness of their classmates. Some refused to discuss … Continue reading

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The first three squareable Lunes

For the sake of some readers we shall first define a lune: A lune is a concave closed region bounded by two circular arcs respectively with radii and and distance between their centers as , where . This region looks … Continue reading

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van Aubel’s theorem

The van Aubel’s theorem is a simple theorem which is comparable to the theorem attributed to the French conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte regarding triangles. It is easy to prove once you know the upāya, even as the yogin-s would say ānanda … Continue reading

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Ovals, drops, tops, eights, pears and the like

Ovals, drops, tops, eights, pears and the like This piece may be seen as a continuation of the earlier one on our journey through the world of ovals. As it needed a lot of figures and some mathematical notation it … Continue reading

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svabhāṣāyāṃ śāstrīyā śikṣā

As PDF navame varṣe lūtikā tasyāḥ pañca-varṣīyāyai anujāyai varolyai dravyaśāstram aśikṣayat | lūtikā ‘vadat : “priye varoli dhyānena kārṇārpaṇaṃ kuru | atha vakṣyāmy amla-kṣāra-siddhāntaṃ ca lavaṇīkaraṇasya prayogaṃ ca | purve kāle svastyātreyeṇa+asmadīyena dravyavidā+amla-kṣāra-siddhāntaḥ proktaḥ | kāle ‘smin amla-kṣāra-siddhānto arrheniyas ca … Continue reading

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The astroid, the deltoid and the fish within the fish

As this article needed a lot of figures with some mathematical notation it is being presented as a PDF file: The astroid, the deltoid and the fish within the fish

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A biographical journey from conics to ovals

As this article needed a lot of figures with some mathematical notation it is being presented as a PDF file: A biographical journey from conics to ovals This may be read a continuation of earlier notes such as: Ovals, drops, tops … Continue reading

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The cardioid and the arbelos: the scimitar and the axe

The arbelos of Archimedes, an object most wondrous; it brought pleasure to us, when stalked by enemies, as the old yavana by Romans, who ended for good his days. What is the mystery of the scimitar and the axe which … Continue reading

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Der singende Knochen: śūlapuruṣāṇāṃ śūletyādi

That afternoon Vidrum was returning with a bunch of other friends whom he had taken through a tough course of climbing at a hilly locale. As they neared a certain road, he, Sharvamanyu, Somakhya and Lootika bade good bye to … Continue reading

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The ghosts of Tulagiri

Vrishchika was taking a few days off to visit her parents’ town before proceeding with her fellowship. Lootika had nearly completed moving her lab to Somakhya’s institute. She was happy that they could finally be together for good again and … Continue reading

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śūlajana-kāvya: Das Riesenspielzeug

Somakhya’s and Lootika’s families were returning from a ritual at the less-known temple of the goddess Bhuvaneśvarī. They were there to worship a mysterious yantra, which is one of the rare examples of the depiction of a curve known as … Continue reading

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The autumn days

Vidrum had just finished up with his last patient for the day. Before heading out to his office one of his assistants offered him a rich halvā. He curtailed his temptation reminding himself how bad it could be for one’s … Continue reading

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Towers and pits

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The social, phantasmagorical and historical journey

It was some time just before the first vacations of Somakhya and Lootika’s first year in the pre-university college. Lootika’s family was visiting a nearby temple of the massive ape Hanūmat on a Saturday evening. In the sabhā-gṛha of the … Continue reading

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The winding narration of deaths and counter-deaths

It is said that Śiva transforms continually into many forms for his own enjoyment; not all of those are enjoyed by the consciousness housed in a paśu *∆*∆*∆* It was the time around Dīpāvalī, an year after when Somakhya and … Continue reading

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A note on the pantheon of the Indian Saura tradition

The Indian Saura-mata (or the Hindu sect of the Sun) is an amalgam of two distinct layers [Footnote 1]: 1) The endogenous layer of solar deities going back to the Veda and 2) the neo-morphic layer of Iranic origin which … Continue reading

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This time it is the big man’s story

Vidrum was hurrying back to his office after a quick dinner. As he did so he mentally rued the fact that every time he found his way out of one problem in life a new one came upon him. Once … Continue reading

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śūlapuruṣa-catvārakam-3: A method for the analysis of history

Somakhya, standing beside a pillar outside his university department, glanced at his watch with a tinge of irritation as he waited for Lootika to show up. She was to bring her sister Vrishchika from the medical school, which was some … Continue reading

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The ponderous tale of the tombstones

“Since you are recording the diverse Vaidruma-s would you record the tombstone variation? While other matters like the sloths of South America, the megalithic culture of India, cave paintings, or even WW2 might be more interesting to the occasional reader … Continue reading

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Chaotic flows

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Icons

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upakathā of previous: śūlapuruṣa-catvārakam-2

upakathā of previous: śūlapuruṣa-catvārakam-1 It was a Saturday afternoon. The caturbhaginī-s had returned from their weekly visit to the museum library and were in a huddle at their home. Lootika was seated on the floor and was classifying and labeling … Continue reading

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upakathā of previous: śūlapuruṣa-catvārakam

It was a bright spring day, when the vaṭakinī mahotsava was being celebrated. Several families from the town were arriving early in the morning at a shrine, which contained a gigantic image of the terrible ape Hanūmat. Even as Somakhya … Continue reading

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The dream motif

Vidrum was nearing the road to his house. Instinctively, he felt his backpack and found it to be unzipped. Then to his utter disappointment he found that his box containing geometric instruments was missing. Anxious to get it back, he … Continue reading

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The doctor and the speech at the right-wing think-tank

It was a late Friday afternoon and Vidrum had returned home early from the hospital. He spent some time in his garden making a ball from the paste of rain-tree pods, a messy but immensely meditative activity, which his friend … Continue reading

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Polygonal recursion

Also see this

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Circular waves

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The alien cave of metallic brachiopods

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The caves

The exam to qualify for pre-university college was just over and a long vacation lay ahead. Vidrum was drained by the huge mental effort he had put into the exams to earn a seat at a respectable college. It was … Continue reading

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Some trivia on equilateral triangles and the like

One may ask why one needs to revisit elementary geometry that was usually studied at secondary school. The simple answer is it is a good recreation. But it is not like any recreation, because it also opens the doors to … Continue reading

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The ditty of the desert road

He who eats once is a tyāgin; He who eats twice is a yogin; He who eats thrice is a bhogin; And he who eats four times a day is verily destined to be a rogin! Some find rest by … Continue reading

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Battle of the agents

As PDF It was the last day of school and the exams were to begin at the start of the next week. Following their parents stern instructions, Jhilleeka and Varoli decided not hangout after school and were returning home on … Continue reading

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Partitions, perforations and tilings

We are “geometric” in our thinking – perhaps, we are hence a little more Greek or the old type Arya than the later Hindu (who is more algebraic) in mentality. Long back in college we were fascinated by implicit trigonometric … Continue reading

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The Mandel-diamond: crystals emerge from an amorphous background

A closer look at realms within this “Terra Mysterium” Crystals by the shore-line: Crystals in the crevice – realm of craters:

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The dance of the bhairava

bhairava on a cadaver from Nepal netrAku~nchana-sAraNa-krama-kR^ita-pravyakta-naktaM dino dik-chakrAnta-visarpi-sallari-saTA-bhArAvaruddhAmbaraH | hasta-nyasta-kapAla-kandara-darI-muktAbhra-dhArAH pibann unmukta-dhvani-bhinna-karNa-kuharaH kravyAd ayaM nR^ityati || netra= eye; Aku~nchana= closing; sAraNa= opening; krama= periodic; kR^ita= act; pravyakta= manifest; naktaM= night; dinaH= day; dik= direction; chakra= circle; anta= ends; [dikchakrAnta= … Continue reading

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The fourth story

Some stories are written for the readers, some are written for the writers, some due to imagination running wild, some due to perverse inspiration, or some combination of some or all of these. ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ From early that morning on 15th … Continue reading

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Attenuated fractality- cube and octagon : Dodecahedron and decagon

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Some sketches of Indian wild life in vidyAkara’s anthology

sAndra-sthUla-naloparodha-viShamAH shakyAvatArAH puras toyottIrNa-nivR^itta-nakra-jaThara-kShuNNa-sthalI-vAlukAH | vyakta-vyAghra-padA~Nka-pa~Nkti-nichitonmudrArdra-pa~NkodarAH saMtrAsaM janayanti ku~nja-saritaH kAchAbha-nIlodakAH || sAndra: thick; sthUla: large; nala: reed; uparodha: barrier; viShamAH: rough; shakya: possible; avatArAH: descents; puraH: first; toya: water; uttIrNa: descended; nivR^itta: climbed back; nakra: crocodile; jaThara: belly; kShuNNa: roughed … Continue reading

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The fractal Arbelos and a parallel in a square

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parjanya

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Idiosyncratic synesthetic experiences in some trivial trigonometric identities

Mathematical objects, despite existing in a purely abstract “Platonic” realm, have the ability (perhaps by the very virtue of their Platonic idealism) to produce synesthetic experiences. We have often wondered in our life as to why the realization or experience … Continue reading

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The cairn beyond the crag

It was the an early Indian summer morning. The type that makes one rise rapidly from bed rather than remain tucked in like the mornings in the cold northern lands. Vidrum had arisen from his bed and briskly jogged up … Continue reading

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The verse of the sword

chitrabandha-s are widely represented in classical works on kAvya. The bandha-s of the form of the sword find mention in agni-purANa, the kAvyAlaMkAra of rudraTa and the praise of chaNDI by the other Kashmirian Anandavardhana. Sword-shaped yantra-s comparable to the … Continue reading

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Ephemeral Hexads

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