"Thomas de Groot" <t.d### [at] internlnet> wrote:
> "PM 2Ring" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht
> news:web.42d3bb11100c48091917bb8b0@news.povray.org...
> > Thanks, Thomas, I'll start rendering a stereo version tonight, on my
> little
> > old 500MHz, 256Mb Windows 2000p machine. It may take some time to do high
> > quality, especially if I use area lights, etc.
>
> I am interested to see the result!

Unfortunately, I couldn't open either of the zip files. I was going to try
again today on my XP machine at work, but it was too busy to play.

> > And Kepler played a key role in this increase. [.....] And, with those
> qualities, I reckon
> > he'd be brilliant at POV, too. (Hey, I managed to get back on-topic. :)
> >
> Yes, it is fascinating to read how science was done in those times, but also
> to see that mankind is mankind. Petty things like those Mars observations
> for instance.

Yes, and in the next century or so, the dispute over the inventor of
calculus, between the supporters of Newton & those of Leibniz.

> > And still worth reading, if you don't mind a bit of mathematical mysticism
> > thrown in. Personally, I find it fascinating, to see how various belief
> > systems influence how people think about the world.

> Yes indeed. I am much interested in the philosophy and history of science
> myself, especially to understand (and make understand) how science is done
> and how our own mental and psychological limits dictated by time, belief, or
> place, influence the whole process.

A fascinating field, and one I appreciate more & more as I grow older.
These limits are very powerful. For example, we can learn in highschool
mathematics most of the important results that took the whole human race
thousands of years to achieve.

> And, to keep on topic too ;-)  , POV can help quite a bit to do that!

Yes! A scientific or mathematical diagram is much more engaging when done
with POV compared to a traditional B&W line drawing!

For example, I've attached a nice circle packing a stumbled across a few
years
back. I assume it was discovered in ancient times, but I haven't tried to
do any research about it. I don't think I've ever seen it before I
accidently
discovered it for myself.

The red cylinders have radius 3, the blue radius 2, the gold radius 1.
Notice the hidden 3,4,5 right-triangles? That's how I found this packing.

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Attachments:
Download 'circlepackb.jpg' (65 KB)

Preview of image 'circlepackb.jpg'

"PM 2Ring" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht
news:web.42d64afa100c4809bb4450f20@news.povray.org...
>
> Unfortunately, I couldn't open either of the zip files. I was going to try
> again today on my XP machine at work, but it was too busy to play.
>
That is strange! I tried also to see if prhaps they had been corrupted, but
they worked fine for me. Tell me if you have problem, and I shall send them
to you (I can still reduce the second one in size by the way.

> For example, I've attached a nice circle packing a stumbled across a few
> years
> back. I assume it was discovered in ancient times, but I haven't tried to
> do any research about it. I don't think I've ever seen it before I
> accidently
> discovered it for myself.
>
> The red cylinders have radius 3, the blue radius 2, the gold radius 1.
> Notice the hidden 3,4,5 right-triangles? That's how I found this packing.
>
That looks a bit familiar to me.... wonder indeed where I saw this
before.... Nice that the 3-4-5 triangle is included!!

Thomas

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"Thomas de Groot" <t.d### [at] internlnet> wrote:
> "PM 2Ring" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht
> news:web.42d64afa100c4809bb4450f20@news.povray.org...
> >
> > Unfortunately, I couldn't open either of the zip files. I was going to try
> > again today on my XP machine at work, but it was too busy to play.

I just tried to unzip on the XP, still no go. :( Maybe I should try a
smarter unZipper?

> That is strange! I tried also to see if prhaps they had been corrupted, but
> they worked fine for me. Tell me if you have problem, and I shall send them
> to you (I can still reduce the second one in size by the way.

> > The red cylinders have radius 3, the blue radius 2, the gold radius 1.
> > Notice the hidden 3,4,5 right-triangles? That's how I found this packing.


> That looks a bit familiar to me.... wonder indeed where I saw this
> before....

If you remember, let me know! :)

Post a reply to this message

"PM 2Ring" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht
news:web.42db472b100c4809ad93754b0@news.povray.org...
> "Thomas de Groot" <t.d### [at] internlnet> wrote:
> > "PM 2Ring" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht
> > news:web.42d64afa100c4809bb4450f20@news.povray.org...
> > >
> > > Unfortunately, I couldn't open either of the zip files. I was going to
try
> > > again today on my XP machine at work, but it was too busy to play.
>
I reposted the files in p.b.s-f, but not zipped.

> > That looks a bit familiar to me.... wonder indeed where I saw this
> > before....
>
> If you remember, let me know! :)
>
Not da Vinci, I believe.... perhaps Bernini?


Thomas

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Hey Thomas, I've always thought Kepler's model would be the perfect thing to 
do in POV-Ray.

Maybe adding a cumpled, scribbled over drawing of the Earth-centered 
universe on the floor would fit in with this. A drawing of the Copernican 
heliocentric universe could be put into the bottom of the large hemisphere. 
Would then look like the other were replaced. Well, except I don't think 
Kepler ever even considered an Earth-centered universe. Not really sure what 
he thought of it. Might throw off the whole scene.

Bob

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"Bob Hughes" <bob### [at] charternet> schreef in bericht
news:42db72ee$1@news.povray.org...
> Hey Thomas, I've always thought Kepler's model would be the perfect thing
to
> do in POV-Ray.
>
> Maybe adding a cumpled, scribbled over drawing of the Earth-centered
> universe on the floor would fit in with this. A drawing of the Copernican
> heliocentric universe could be put into the bottom of the large
hemisphere.
> Would then look like the other were replaced. Well, except I don't think
> Kepler ever even considered an Earth-centered universe. Not really sure
what
> he thought of it. Might throw off the whole scene.
>
> Bob
>
That's an interesting idea, Bob. I shall see if I follow that up. I think
that Kepler in his early days may have believed in a Ptolemaic solar system,
i.e. Earth-centered. But I am really not sure about this. PM 2Ring should
know!

Thomas

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"Thomas de Groot" <t.d### [at] internlnet> wrote:
> "PM 2Ring" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht
> news:web.42db472b100c4809ad93754b0@news.povray.org...
> > "Thomas de Groot" <t.d### [at] internlnet> wrote:
> > > "PM 2Ring" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht
> > > news:web.42d64afa100c4809bb4450f20@news.povray.org...
> > > >
> > > > Unfortunately, I couldn't open either of the zip files. I was going to
> try
> > > > again today on my XP machine at work, but it was too busy to play.

I tried to open another .zip (from Jaime's site) today, it it didn't work,
either. I suspect bad zip software at my end. Grrr...

> I reposted the files in p.b.s-f, but not zipped.
>
> > > That looks a bit familiar to me.... wonder indeed where I saw this
> > > before....
> >
> > If you remember, let me know! :)
> >
> Not da Vinci, I believe.... perhaps Bernini?

Bernini - after a quick Google I feel embarrassed at not recogniziong the
name. People seem to like his fountains... :) He gets 9250 hits on Google
Images, so I have plenty to feast my eyes on. Thanks!

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"Thomas de Groot" <t.d### [at] internlnet> wrote:
> "Bob Hughes" <bob### [at] charternet> schreef in bericht
> news:42db72ee$1@news.povray.org...
> > Hey Thomas, I've always thought Kepler's model would be the perfect thing
> to
> > do in POV-Ray.
> >
> > Maybe adding a cumpled, scribbled over drawing of the Earth-centered
> > universe on the floor would fit in with this. A drawing of the Copernican
> > heliocentric universe could be put into the bottom of the large
> hemisphere.
> > Would then look like the other were replaced. Well, except I don't think
> > Kepler ever even considered an Earth-centered universe. Not really sure
> what
> > he thought of it. Might throw off the whole scene.
> >
> > Bob

Don't forget about the Tychonic system - Tycho Brahe's odd compromise, with
the Sun & Moon orbiting Earth, and all the other planets orbiting the Sun.

> >
> That's an interesting idea, Bob. I shall see if I follow that up. I think
> that Kepler in his early days may have believed in a Ptolemaic solar system,
> i.e. Earth-centered. But I am really not sure about this. PM 2Ring should
> know!
>
> Thomas

I should know, but memory is a funny thing... Contrary to my post of last
week, Kepler didn't actually help to gather the Mars data, but Tycho hired
him (after leaving Uraniborg) to analyze this data for him, about a year
before Tycho's death.

By his mid-twenties Kepler was a champion of the Copernican system: "In
1596, while a mathematics teacher in Graz, he wrote the first outspoken
defense of the Copernican system, the Mysterium Cosmographicum." (See link
below)

I don't know what Kepler thought of the Ptolemaic system during his student
days (if I did know, I've forgotten :) but most of its various defects were
well-known by then. Not only was it not so accurate with position
prediction, it had no explanation for the variable brightness of Mars, for
example.

For a quick bio and other interesting info, see
http://kepler.nasa.gov/johannes/

Halfway down this page is a very cute little .GIF anim of Kepler's Law of
Areas.

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"PM 2Ring" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message 
news:web.42dcd3f4100c4809d46eca60@news.povray.org...
>
> For a quick bio and other interesting info, see
> http://kepler.nasa.gov/johannes/

That was interesting. I didn't know any of that before, or had forgotten it 
all. My classes in astronomy were mostly the technical stuff and none of the 
history-- or very little of it anyhow.

Those "firsts" are amazing. Total internal reflection, eh? The guy would 
have done some raytracing for sure then, like someone (oh, was PM 2Ring!) 
said before, that Kepler could have been good with POV-Ray.

I especially didn't know I have him to thank, at least in part, for 
eyeglasses.

Kepler gets well-known for that somewhat bizarre geometric model and most 
people probably don't realize he wasn't just some kind of peculiar person. I 
know I sure do. However, I always admired Kepler for that.

That stuff about him being a religous rebel, in some sense, is apparently 
common among the scientists of the period. But moreso I think the average 
person was probably becoming smarter about things because all this changed 
soon after it became popular. Science, being something dealing in facts, is 
obviously a tough thing to ignore.

Bob

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Thank you for updating our knowledge!! Very much appreciated!

Thomas

"PM 2Ring" <nomail@nomail> schreef in bericht
news:web.42dcd3f4100c4809d46eca60@news.povray.org...
>
> Don't forget about the Tychonic system - Tycho Brahe's odd compromise,
with
> the Sun & Moon orbiting Earth, and all the other planets orbiting the Sun.
>
> I should know, but memory is a funny thing... Contrary to my post of last
> week, Kepler didn't actually help to gather the Mars data, but Tycho hired
> him (after leaving Uraniborg) to analyze this data for him, about a year
> before Tycho's death.
>
> By his mid-twenties Kepler was a champion of the Copernican system: "In
> 1596, while a mathematics teacher in Graz, he wrote the first outspoken
> defense of the Copernican system, the Mysterium Cosmographicum." (See link
> below)
>
> I don't know what Kepler thought of the Ptolemaic system during his
student
> days (if I did know, I've forgotten :) but most of its various defects
were
> well-known by then. Not only was it not so accurate with position
> prediction, it had no explanation for the variable brightness of Mars, for
> example.
>
> For a quick bio and other interesting info, see
> http://kepler.nasa.gov/johannes/
>
> Halfway down this page is a very cute little .GIF anim of Kepler's Law of
> Areas.
>

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