Mysterious Suburban Chicago Crop Circles

NBC 5 Chicago ^ | 7/26/02 | NBC 5 Chicago

[boris]

I viewed the source. The html is trying to show a square root but it is not being displayed. The problem is that the full reference to 'sqrt.gif' is not being used, only its short form, which is insufficient to tell the browser where to find it.

Euclid used this phrase to mean the ratio of the smaller part of this line, GB to the larger part AG (ie the ratio GB/AG) is the SAME as the ratio of the larger part, AG, to the whole line AB (ie is the same as the ratio AG/AB). If we let the line AB have unit length and AG have length g (so that GB is then just 1–g) then the definition means that

     GB = AG  or 1–g = g  so that 1–g=g2

     AG   AB      g    1

     

Notice that earlier we defined Phi² as Phi+1 and here we have g² = 1–g or g²+g=1.
We can solve this in the same way as for Phi and we find that

g =	–1 +5	or g =	–1 – 5

[Travis McGee]

It was a pretty bad feeling to hear the bull snorting in the dark when you are about 200 yards from the nearest tall wire fence! Never got gored though, and even with the yelling and running we never woke up the farmers.

[longshadow]

If YOU had ever studied Mathematics, you'd know that the Mathematicians who studied "Sacred Geometry" gave us our most basic and fundamental knowledge of Mathmematics and Geometry.

If you are suggesting that people who achieved great things in Math studied "Sacred Geometry" and that therefore "Sacred Geometry" contributed to their achievements, that is a logical fallacy: "post hoc, ergo, propter hoc." If you are suggesting that because people who achieved great things studied "Sacred Geometry" it therefore follows that "Sacred Geometry" is important, it is another logical fallacy; argument by association. It is no more valid to make that claim than it is to assert that strip joints are important to Quantum Mechanics because Dick Feynman used to hang out in strip clubs (which, in point of fact, he did.)

Well then I guess the University of Arizona (amongst others) must be living in the stone age...

The Golden Ratio

As I said, modern Mathematicians don't waste much time on this sort of stuff. The fact that a few Mathematicians expend some minor effort to calculate irrational numbers to huge numbers of decimal places does NOT "phi" a matter of great Mathematical import. Did you bother to check out the URL of your link to the Univ. of Arizona? Check out the very end of it:

http://www.cs.arizona.edu/icon/oddsends/phi.htm [emphasis added to show that "phi" falls into the Mathematical category of "odds and ends"!]

As they say, "res ipsa loquitur".....

One example..

University of Buffalo - EGYPTIAN GEOMETRY

Not even in the ballpark, FL. I asked you for examples of top-50 Universities whose Math Departments had non-remedial, technical course offerings in "Sacred Geometry," and you give me professor William's web page of "Mathematics of the African Diaspora". Did you not see his comment: "Sacred Geometry (even less Mathematics and Religion) is something which only interests me periphally, and barely at that."? So your link fails to deliver the mail on the following accounts:

1. I asked for "top-50 schools" and you gave me Buffalo

2. I asked for examples of Math department courses in "Sacred Geometry" that aren't remedial or non-technical courses, and you have not even provided a SINGLE example.

I therefore renew my earlier objection:

If I am wrong about this, then there should be no shortage of non-introductory or non-remedial course offerings that are devoted to the study of "Sacred Geometry" in the Math Department course catalogs of virtually every top-50 University.

But I've never heard of any of them offering such a course...

Your ignorance of the topic is quite obvious here. Phi is a universal constant that is used in Mathematics, Physics, and related fields such as Geometry and Astronomy. The Golden Mean is also widely used. Even DNA follows the Golden Section. [snip]

So is the number "1," but don't know of any cults based on it. The fact that a number appears in lots of different contexts doesn't bestow mystical properties on that number. "Pi," "i," "e," "1," and "0" are Mathematically far more important than "phi" will ever be. In fact, there is a fundamental expression that relates ALL of the numbers I just named:

e^i*pi +1 = 0

As for Geometry, it suffices to note that modern Geometry is based on Hilbert's axiom system; if you can show me where Hilbert elevates either "phi" or "Sacred Geometry" to any status of significance in his system of Geometry, I will gladly reconsider my position. I would be even more willing to reconsider my position if you can show me which of Hilbert's famous 24 questions pertains to "Sacred Geometry," but you can't be cause they don't. Hilbert posed the 24 most important unanswered questions in all of Mathematics in 1900, and not one of them is about "Sacred Geometry."

Your extensive links on "phi" and it's relation to "Mandlebrot sets" and Fibonacci numbers, etc., merely reaffirms my previous objection: it, like all of "Sacred Geometry" is a Mathematical curiosity, a legacy of a mystical era in Mathematics, that today is nothing more than a hobby or curiousity for a few Mathematicians. The fact that Dick Duffin used to teach a course in "Mathematical Problems, Puzzles, and Paradoxes" doesn't make Puzzles a hot field in modern Mathematics. The fact that somebody writes a research paper on "Secrets of the Roman Numeral System" doesn't make Roman Numerals and important topic in Mathematics. And so, the fact that you can find numerous links on the web about "Sacred Geometry" doesn't make it an important topic in Mathematics.

They [Space Aliens] more than likely would depict something that you wouldn't understand, be it fractals or the Pythagorian[sic] Theorum [sic].

My, you are quick with the sarcasm, aren't you. If the "Space Aliens" really wanted to show us they were here, they could conclusively do so by posting a proof of one of the remaining unsolved problems from Hilbert's 24 questions, as mentioned above. A suitable candidate would be a proof (or refutation) of the validity of the Continuum Hypothesis, first proposed by Cantor in 1874. Since no human has been able to answer the question, a proof of the answer, stomped in a wheat field, would certainly get some attention, and imply that something of prodigious intellect was responsible for the proof. But, no; all we get is crop-circles which some people think are messages about "Sacred Geometry."

"Sacred Geometry" has been around since at least the Egyptians, and more than likely so have they.

Fairy tales have been around since the dawn of man; does that mean fairies are more than likely with us?

Your obsession with the mystical Mathematical curiosity you call "Sacred Geometry" and its attendant lunacy about "vibrational resonances" doesn't require Mathematicians to drop their current research and Math departments to revise their course offerings in response to the infatuation a few people have for the topic. Were it significant, Math Departments would be teaching technical courses on it. They aren't; it isn't.

[PatrickHenry]

This is probably the most devastating, exhaustive, and authoritative refutation of a kook-idea I've ever seen on this website. But if your addressee is a fully committed cultist, your excellent post will have no effect on him at all.

[Scully]

If you are suggesting that because people who achieved great things studied "Sacred Geometry" it therefore follows that "Sacred Geometry" is important, it is another logical fallacy; argument by association.

Hehe...spectacular post!

[VadeRetro]

Someone once accused me of trying to teach calculus to a cow. There's a better chance I could learn calculus from a cow, so that charge was exaggerated. You're getting close here with Former Lurker.

Travis McGee pegged him down firmly a few pages back.

You sir, are a lunatic.

Harmless, I am sure.

[ChicagoRepublican]

The Chicago Fire(soccer team) play in Naperville now that the Park District hijacked Soldier Field. I'm sure they're behind it. Yep, soccer playing foreigners who make crop circles, I'm shocked no one else figured this out already.

[FormerLurker]

An allusion to pure pseudo-scientific pabulum from someone who probably can't change his own flashlight's batteries without detailed instructions pulled off a website ...

Straight out of the fingers of a mindless dolt who claims to be an expert in just about anything and everything, yet can't even get basic facts straight...

[FormerLurker]

You at least can relate e^(pi*i) = -1, otherwise known as the Euler Formula

Interestingly, you ignore the importance of phi and the Fibonacci Numbers

If you REALLY think this field of Mathematics to be archaic and obsolete, drop me a line sometime.

[FormerLurker]

Travis McGee pegged him down firmly a few pages back.

You sir, are a lunatic

Travis was a Navy SEAL, so I have some respect for HIM, not necessarily his OPINIONS on the other hand. You on the other hand, I have NO respect for.

So to put it nicely, you are in fact a B*TTHOLE SURFER, as you and your buddies are infatuated with ANAL PROBES...

[FormerLurker]

This is probably the most devastating, exhaustive, and authoritative refutation of a kook-idea I've ever seen on this website. But if your addressee is a fully committed cultist, your excellent post will have no effect on him at all.

You are one sick pup.

[FormerLurker]

Boris, you are the dude!!! Great analysis, and yes, I understand what you're saying.

Cut and paste operations with a little find and replace don't always work as expected...

[rdb3]

[InvisibleChurch]

Dr. Raymond Stantz: Symmetrical book stacking. Just like the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947.

Dr. Peter Venkman: You're right, no human being would stack books like this.

[FormerLurker]

Perhaps...

[FormerLurker]

Your extensive links on "phi" and it's relation to "Mandlebrot sets" and Fibonacci numbers, etc., merely reaffirms my previous objection:

Before I prove you to be a complete, total, utterly ignorant fool, why don't you retract some of what you said?

[FormerLurker]

SHOW ME a spectrum analyzer showing this increased EM/RF "activity" and I *might* believe you ...

A) EM "activity" can be read on a magnetometer
B) If you want to take a walk with a portable spectrum analyzer into a field that contains a REAL crop circle, maybe we could do it live via webcast on FR? Don't forget the MAGNETOMETER....

[FormerLurker]

In awe of gullibility would be more like it ...

Yep. And we are to believe your astute analysis and dissertation on the subject. Right....

[FormerLurker]

Frat boys don't have enough skill or industry to make those patterns.

Ping.