Spirograph and string things

As a child, I was always really pleased to get a Spirograph as a Christmas present. With its cogs and pens it allowed you to create what you might call mathematical art. You set up the frame and the cogwheels, poked a pen into one of the holes and whirled the pen round and round until it had drawn out a complex-looking spiral on the paper. You used different sized cogs and shapes and different holes to generate different patterns, which you could overlay. 1970s Spirograph set, photo c/o VintageToys.com I even had one that used paints and tinfoil instead of pen and paper. I remember rattling off dozens of these things, I suppose it fed both my young artistic and scientific brain at the same time. I reckon I had three or four Spirograph sets over the years. And, I was fascinated when I first encountered the Julia Sets and Mandelbrot Sets in my late teens, there were like an infinity of fractal Spirographs. Moreover, in the parallel world of my love of music, it’s probably why I got into the music of Rush in my early teens with their occasionally highly repetitive, complex and mathematical riffs (Jacob’s Ladder, Cygnus X-1, La Villa Strangiato, for example, not only in odd, mixed keys and compound time signatures, but simultaneously repetitive and minimalist). Pin and String Diamond by David Bradley ca 1979 At the age of 11 or 12 or so, my mate Phil and I used to ride our Raleigh Grifters up the Coast Road to visit his Dad’s new family on Sundays. We imagined w...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Photography Source Type: blogs