Interesting Links for 06-03-2013

[andrewducker]

• We Asked the Lunatic Fringe of UK Politics About Their Ideal Britain
  (tags: politics uk headdesk )
• David Cameron tells Cabinet: End cuts 'nimbyism' - the welfare state can't take all the pain
  (tags: politics uk welfare )
• The government has withdrawn controverial proposals on competition in the NHS
  (tags: politics uk nhs )
• New gene variant may

Comments

[del_c]

Having scrutinised Ms Von Teese in the dress some more (tough job, but somebody's gotta do it), I don't see a Fibonacci spiral, such as described in The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants. That's the spiral you see in sunflowers, pine cones, and pineapples, and is caused by elements arranged around a centre at intervals of almost 222.5 degrees, which is the golden angle, the angular equivalent of the golden ratio. These give the visual effect of two sets of spirals going in opposite directions, each numbering one of two adjacent values in the Fibonacci series. (the ratio of two adjacent numbers in the Fibonacci series also converges on the golden ratio, as the numbers get large). I'd expect to see about 60% more spirals going one way than the other, and for the angles to be different for the two directions, like on these pineapples, and on the dress they look about the same. This is also a mistake made by sculptors of stone pineapples, always they make them symmetric.

I conjecture, but can't prove, that real Fibonacci spirals used as dress materials would not produce the Chinese-finger-trap effect very well: pulling on the tube dress would just torque it uncomfortably and make it wrinkle up, instead of conforming slinkily to the figure. It might make a nice print pattern on a non-fibonacci cloth design, though.

[steer]

Yes, I was expecting to see something like the sunflower example... but no.

It hadn't occurred to me that pineapples were fibonacci from both ends but you are correct.

I expect the stone pineapple sculptors hadn't actually seen many real pineapples since they were mainly sculpted during the pineapple's brief reign as "incredibly desirable object to have at society dinner party" where many pineapples were merely rented to impress guests and never actually eaten (and apparently were often in advanced states of decay). I can't now imagine how a pineapple grows.

I suspect with the 3d printing dress you could adjust the taughtness at any level of the dress and hence achieve the desired level of elasticity separate to the number of "holes" in that level of the dress. If you look again at the picture it seems like some parts of the dress have more fabric between holes than others.