Saturday, August 25, 2012

Sphere of Seven

I'm obsessing about the sphere again. A long while ago, I was reading an old alchemical text. There was an illustration of a unique style of globe shape cage. It was made of 7 great circles. I think it was a map of the heavens - ie 7th heaven.  With a bit of time and effort, I figured out how to make one.  I have yet to construct one, but I know how.

Today I was looking at flat pak furniture and housing. These are large projects that work not unlike those snap apart wooden dinosaur models.

So now, I am fighting the urge to make a small scale cardboard model of my 7sphere. The full size would be made out of mdf panels which will be two panels thick, offsetting the seam by one half each arc. Without giving away my design, I think each of the 7 great circles will have an obvious and similar number of segments, each layer rotated one half way round the circle, intersections to be calculated. It is a good thing I received ribbons for my geometry grades.

The purpose of  writing this was to get my brain solving the problem. - It happened. This work is closely related to Buckminster Fuller's Bamboo Geodesic. If that means anything to anyone.
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and so it goes
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For more info

  1. A mathematician's view of the significance of 7
  2. Forty two Flat Pak furniture and house designs
  3. Free Spirit Spheres
  4. Circle and sphere calculator
  5. Means nothing to you?

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