Connections: Persian Rugs and Morton Feldman’s music [study]

  Does listening to Morton Feldman’s ‘Crippled Symmetry’ suite (above) remind you of a Persian rug? If not, you may not be attuned to Feldman’s repetitions and variations – which, on closer inspection, may, it’s said, in some senses, resonate with patterns on rugs. But, academically speaking, possible common threads have not been studied in […]

Classification and Computer Generation of Necktie Patterns

Is it possible to create a simple computerised system to cover all characteristics of necktie patterns – and that can also generate patterns similar to existing neckties? Researchers Hiroshi Fukuda, Tomoko Saito and Gisaku Nakamura of the School of Administration and Informatics, University of Shizuoka, Shizuoka-shi, Shizuoka 422, Japan – as far back as 1994* […]

Where the statistical wear is

Ivars Peterson, in his blog, The Mathematical Tourist, explains how a detective take a mathematical approach to some everyday questions: Marks on objects can provide intriguing statistical glimpses of usage patterns. The darkened leaves of a well-thumbed book may point to favorite passages; the distinctive hollows of oft-traversed steps suggest the characteristic tread of countless […]

A wide-ranging look at the number 3 in reality

The number 3 draws much of the focus in this study: “The intriguing human preference for a ternary patterned reality,” Lionello Pogliani, Douglas J. Klein [pictured here], and Alexandra T. Balaban, Kragujevac Journal of Science, 27 (2005): 75-114. The authors, at Università della Calabria, Italy and Texas A&M University at Galveston, USA, explain: “Number three […]

Improbable Research