non-visual symmetry, does it exist? examples?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Without really thinking about it I listed "visual symmetry" as one of my interests on livejournal, but as I started noticing that no-one else had listed it but people had listed just "symmetry" I began to wonder if symmetry is inherently visual? I guess the answer would be that it is predominantly visual. The only other type I can think of would be aural symmetry. I was thinking about this after the What's Your Favourite Palindrome thread, wondering about palindromes that also potentially were aurally symmetric.

― cuspidorian (cuspidorian), Sunday, 31 August 2003 15:39 (twenty-two years ago)

obviously some of the palindromes also sound the same both ways, like say "pop" but some like "Was it Eliot's toilet I saw" would not.

― cuspidorian (cuspidorian), Sunday, 31 August 2003 15:42 (twenty-two years ago)

palindromes that also potentially were aurally symmetric

Perhaps in theory, but probably not in practise due to differences between attack and decay.

Maybe not in English, anyway. Maybe in a scandinavian language.

― ModJ, Sunday, 31 August 2003 15:44 (twenty-two years ago)

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/cantordu/ek/padd.jpg http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/cantordu/ek/padd1mirror.jpg

here I am posing (in the 1980s) for your mirror-image pleasure fix

― cuspidorian (cuspidorian), Sunday, 31 August 2003 15:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Sight, touch, and hearing are the only human senses that infer direction, so symmetry as perceived by humans is limited to these.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 31 August 2003 18:10 (twenty-two years ago)

My university's offering a course called "Symmetry and Science" in the Fall, through the History and Philosophy of Science Department; I'm likely to be by the bookstore today, if it's not too crowded I'll jot down the name of the text(s) they're using.

― Tep (ktepi), Sunday, 31 August 2003 18:29 (twenty-two years ago)

The set of all physical movements of an equilateral triangle that return it to its original, with an appropriatley defined operator for combining those movements, is 'symmetric'.

In group theory (a sort of maths) it's called S_3.

― mei (mei), Sunday, 31 August 2003 18:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I could imagine a symmetrical taste. Like, something where the beforetaste and the aftertaste (ala the "attack" and "decay") were the same, and lasted the same length of time, with the "actual" flavor coming right in the middle. I'm not exactly clear why this would be worth doing, but it seems possible. Someone at Pepsi should get right on this.

― Jesse Fuchs (Jesse Fuchs), Monday, 1 September 2003 00:17 (twenty-two years ago)

i've felt a symmetry in events in my life before. As an example I currently live directly across the street from the flat I used to live in. I've been in the current place and the old about the same time, with exactly 1 year in between in a third house.

I like that kind of strange chaos theory life symmetry.

― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 1 September 2003 00:20 (twenty-two years ago)

An interesting visualization of notes in MIDI files, that manages to show a lot of repetition in music (so far as the MIDI rep. is accurate to a song). Not really repetition, but it would be trivial to extend this visualization to get a sense of symetry as well

http://turbulence.org/Works/song/index.html

I dropped out of my abstract algebra class and never came back to it, but yeah, it seems like group theory might be interesting here. Isn't there a lot of connections between group theory to the physics of little, fast things?

― Jacob Barss-Bailey (Jaacob), Monday, 1 September 2003 00:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Whoops. Try this maybe http://turbulence.org/Works/song/index.html

― Jacob Barss-Bailey (Jaacob), Monday, 1 September 2003 00:51 (twenty-two years ago)

what if you digitized something and put half of it backwards just at the point of decay?

― youn, Monday, 1 September 2003 02:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Isn't the gibberish on Miss E's "Work It" just the chorus flipped backwards?

― Jesse Fuchs (Jesse Fuchs), Monday, 1 September 2003 03:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Is geometry necessarily visual?

There is definitely such a thing as musical symmetry - see Bach's fuges for examples of that.

― Andrew (enneff), Monday, 1 September 2003 03:34 (twenty-two years ago)

symetry of taste:

bread-> peanut butter -> jelly -> bread -> jelly -> penut butter -> bread!!!!

― A Nairn (moretap), Monday, 1 September 2003 04:13 (twenty-two years ago)

loops are symetrical, and they are very common. circles of thought, cycles, etc..

― A Nairn (moretap), Monday, 1 September 2003 04:27 (twenty-two years ago)

palidromes are still only visually symmetrical since backwards they read about 500% slower

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 1 September 2003 06:58 (twenty-two years ago)

if you have a palindrome in chinese it'd sound the same forwards and backwards.

Can't think of one though.

― ken c, Tuesday, 2 September 2003 09:02 (twenty-two years ago)

gibberish? It's fremme neppa venette!

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 10:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Depends on the palindrome, surely? I mean, the name "Anna" is both visually and aurally symmetrical, isn't it?

Also, aural symmetry = the difference between stereo and mono on headphones?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 10:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Whole of physics to thread! You can have symmetry of charge, of quark colour, of quark flavour, with respect to position in space time, of parity etc etc. Even as far as spatial stuff goes, it's bloody hard visualising a symmetrical object with 24-dimensional space.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 10:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Isn't the gibberish on Miss E's "Work It" just the chorus flipped backwards?

that jesse answered this question instead of asked it proves the ile:ilm symmetry

― mark p (Mark P), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 13:08 (twenty-two years ago)

the way I pronounce "Anna": A (as in ant) nn a (as in aunt)

― A Nairn (moretap), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Like that makes it clearer!

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 2 September 2003 22:51 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.