Sunday, October 11, 2020

Spirals are very sinistral and inescapable

Have you ever taken a closer look at the humble spiral, a reoccurring pattern on a universal scale, one most of us take for granted. Obsessing over it will cause the best of us to spiral out of control, and living in a downward spiral is a terrible thing.

In art there is the concept of the golden ratio, a template that arrange elements into a spiral by dividing a picture into a series of rectangles. It is very aesthetically pleasing and apparently it is seen as a recurring pattern in nature. Once you gave seen it, you can not unsee it.

Pulling the plug on the sink causes the water to drain in a twisting pattern, which gets smaller the further down it go. One thing I always found very fascinating as a chip was being introduced to is the two bottles facing each other. One is in the bottom, and the other is on top, with the two corks glued together. A terrible roundabout way for me to talk about a water filled hourglass. In essence this device is a way to study and observe a miniature vortex, or is that a whirlpool. Regardless it is yet another spiral. The curious thing though is the direction the water drain. In fact most spirals only goes in one direction.

Maelstroms is a common natural phenomenon, one that is very popular in stories and folklore. Here and there stories have been told of ships getting sucked in, only to never show up again. Around the world there are several quite famous ones. So there is clearly truth in fiction. The weather is not exempt from the spiral either, that is for sure. The crushing tornadoes commonly associated with certain north American locations is also a spiraling cone. Welcome to the eye of the tropical storm

To further highlight the recurrence of this shape, just take a close look at your finger tips. The finger print patterns is yet another spiral.  Yes you are incapable of escaping the spiral. If that is not disturbing enough, there is a spiral inside our ears as well. Just do not bring a drill into the ear cavity to get rid of it. Because spirals are very useful for human tools and has brought us great innovations, such as the ever useful drill. Because a hole is always useful, be it building a house with screws, digging for oil, or various types of excavating. While focusing on the body, the hair on our heads also tends to start in one spot and spiral outwards. In fact I've noticed this on many animals as well. Such as dogs with short fur.

As for the pattern in nature, just look at the humble snail. The slimy slow moving creature that carry a spiral shaped shelter on its back, which it can retract its body into. The very curios thing though is how I have never found a sinistral shell. As far as I know spirals tends to be dextral on my side of the globe. I can most likely attribute this to gravity.

Might as well bring in that existential angst now. Because the milky way is one huge ass spiral. Just look up the various pictures and observations from NASA. But this is just food for thoughts. However if you happen to be looking for the definite illustrated biography of the horrors of the spiral, look up the manga Uzumaki.






Zaceron signing out.

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