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Right angles in nature

comb

A while back, somebody here asked whether right-angles occur very often in nature ... i found that to be an intriguing question ... i could not find many and those mostly were in the world of crystals ... here are a few examples:


pyrite



pyrite crystals



pyrite crystals



table salt



flourite

anybody got any more ?

 
Nov 25, 05 1:37 pm
StudioWookie

[]

Nov 25, 05 2:39 pm  · 
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comb

StudioWookie: i think those are "right angles in cyberspace"

Nov 25, 05 2:48 pm  · 
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.

The right angle comes from man's upright posture, making him perpendicular to the ground plane, the spiritual intersection of the heavenly and earthbound.

Its also easier to fabricate and stack things at right angles.

Nov 25, 05 2:53 pm  · 
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Dymaxion

T-shape.
A molecular shape that results when there are 3 bonds and 2 lone pairs around the central atom in the molecule. The atoms bonded to the central atom lie at the ends of a "T" with 90° angles between them. ICl3 has a T-shaped molecular geometry.

Nov 25, 05 3:00 pm  · 
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file

do you consider "alien residue" as "naturally occurring" .... ?





Nov 25, 05 4:53 pm  · 
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G-bot

vectors and light rays

Nov 25, 05 10:37 pm  · 
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Carl Douglas (agfa8x)

Le Corbusier - Poeme a l'angle droit

Nov 25, 05 11:14 pm  · 
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silverlake

Feldspar crystals

Nov 26, 05 12:05 am  · 
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frankencense

Hang a plumb-bob over a bowl of water.

Right angle every time.

Nov 26, 05 12:45 am  · 
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StudioGhost

a plumb bob isnt a part of nature. unless it's like a spider dropping down its thread or something i guess.

well i can't really come up with anything cept maybe if u look at the stars, there's bound to be some that are lined up to form right angles...

Nov 27, 05 1:00 am  · 
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upside

ah, space isnt flat, so any stars that look like they are next to eachother are really at different distances. and they are all moving at differnent speeds in differnent directions, so its kinda unlikely.

not a right angle. but carbon60. buckminsterfullerene is very geometriclly regular.

Nov 27, 05 10:35 pm  · 
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StudioGhost

when u stand up, ur body is perpendicular to the ground?

Nov 27, 05 11:01 pm  · 
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norm

just because two objects are at right angles to each other doesn't make it a 90 degree angle found in nature - angles are a man-made construct - our way of interpreting something. 90 degree angles are inefficient and so are rare in nature. a great book that touches on this is "the self-made tapestry: pattern formation in nature" by michael ball. (or something close to that)

Nov 28, 05 4:06 pm  · 
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Manteno_Montenegro

Nature's patterns give me the creeps. I can't stand looking at the center of a sunflower, and those little black things in the sides of strawberrys and kiwi fruit make me uneasy. Same thing with the inside of another thing...what's it called...


(10 minutes later.)
Acorn squash I think it is.

Nov 28, 05 5:04 pm  · 
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nicomachean

trees

Nov 28, 05 9:05 pm  · 
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dia

So whats the point here? Don't design with right angles because they are not natural? Last time I looked, architecture wasnt natural...

Nov 28, 05 10:09 pm  · 
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Dazed and Confused

Nov 29, 05 12:23 am  · 
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c.k.

dried mud cracking

Nov 29, 05 12:35 am  · 
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tsq

As frankencense's example of the plumb-bob illustrates, right angles do occur naturally though gravity, although seldomly visible outside the realms of man-made objects.

They also occur in nature such as in the common salt NaCl crystal as well as the Archimedes snub cube:
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~mamikon/SnubCube.html

Nov 29, 05 1:06 am  · 
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comb

diabase: i think there are two potential points ...
a) it's kinda interesting, and
b) they're kinda rare ...
beyond that, there's no political or professional agenda (at least not for me)

besides, it's just fun to contemplate the question

Nov 29, 05 11:23 am  · 
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myriam

These are six-sided natural shapes, not rectangles, but I feel like they might be fun to mention here:



At the Giant's Causeway in N.I.

Nov 29, 05 12:39 pm  · 
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le bossman

i had this discussion a few times in ugrad with my friends, and minerals seemed to be the only thing we could come up with. only the most simple elements in nature take on such simple forms. perhaps we are all just very simple minded.

Nov 29, 05 12:54 pm  · 
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le bossman
Nov 29, 05 12:57 pm  · 
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richardtaylor


My friend showed me a chunk of rock with pyrite crystals embedded into it, and I was 100% convinced that it was a hoax. The cubes look so unnatural...
My guess is that nature found them cheaper to build, and easier to hang pictures on.


Nov 29, 05 1:02 pm  · 
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myriam

c'mon, richardtaylor, everyone knows corners cost more!

Nov 29, 05 1:18 pm  · 
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garpike

frankencense, your post had me thinging:

"Hang a plumb-bob over a bowl of water."

Doesn't the water's surface follow the curve of the earth? I never thought of this. My drink of water and bowl of cereal are domes at the top surface!

Nov 29, 05 5:52 pm  · 
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joek

how about bracket fungus? I know its not always precisely flat but it is something that often grows at right angles to the tree trunk.

<img src="http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a88/muslei/eppingforest40big.jpg" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com">

Nov 29, 05 7:09 pm  · 
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joek

sorry -

Nov 29, 05 7:10 pm  · 
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comb

joek ... here's a few photos of bracket fungus sized better for this site:




cool find .... !

Nov 29, 05 10:53 pm  · 
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liberty bell

garpike: Doesn't the water's surface follow the curve of the earth? I never thought of this. My drink of water and bowl of cereal are domes at the top surface!

Yes, that's right. I remember discussing this in school once, related to the fact that though we may draw a concrete slab as perfectly planar it actually isn't, when you adjust for the earth's curved surface.

And I love the notion of connecting yourself to the universe every morning through contemplating the curvature of the surface of your cup of coffee. Good morning!

Nov 29, 05 11:28 pm  · 
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comb

hmmmm ... seems to me the ancient Greeks knew a thing or two about this curvature-of-the-earth thing and the verticality of columns ....

Nov 30, 05 1:51 pm  · 
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distant

recognizing that this isn't necessarily a naturally occurring thing, but an invention of man ... nevertheless ...

"Consider now the triangle on the surface of the Earth, made up of the equator, the line of 0 degrees longitude through London, and the line of 90 degrees longtitude east, through Bangladesh. The two lines of longitude, meet the equator at a right angle, 90 degrees. The two lines of longitude also meet each other at the north pole, at a right angle, or 90 degrees."

Professor Stephen Hawking

Dec 3, 05 4:24 pm  · 
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le bossman

yeah, but what about the meniscus?

http://education.jlab.org/qa/meniscus_01.html

Dec 4, 05 6:39 pm  · 
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garpike

meniscus shmeniscus.

comb, actually didn't the Greeks do that to give the Parthenon a more ominous perspectival effect? Kind of cartoony.

Dec 4, 05 6:49 pm  · 
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silverlake

mies' national gallery roof is spherical for the same reason...

Dec 4, 05 7:52 pm  · 
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landonshivers

I just came across this thread somehow. What about honeycombs, spiderwebs, snowflakes, and the scutes on a turtle shell? Maybe not a perfect right angle, but polygonal for sure. Am I mistaken? 

Sep 13, 18 4:23 am  · 
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nugbase

The reason you will not encounter 90 degree angles in nature is due to deconstructive energy. Non-destructive, perfect compression, perfect nesting, perfect embedding waves are achieved through a spiraling vortex with Golden Ratio proportions. Phen Shui is correct, nothing that we human beings manufacture should consist of right angles. This was a poor decision that disregarded the laws of nature and creates frequencies and vibrations which are not beneficial for us or nature in general. 

A few of the fascinating facts to consider which I have discovered over the course of my recent research;

1/137 is the fine structure constant (0.007297351); "It’s one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the “hand of God” wrote that number, and “we don’t know how He pushed his pencil.” 

Dr. Bill Riemers writes: classical physics tells us that electrons captured by element #137 (as yet undiscovered and unnamed) of the periodic table will move at the speed of light. The idea is quite simple, if you don’t use math to explain it. 137 is the odds that an electron will absorb a single photon. Protons and electrons are bound by interactions with photons. So when you get 137 protons, you get 137 photons, and you get a 100% chance of absorption. An electron in the ground state will orbit at the speed of light. This is the electromagnetic equivalent of a black hole. For gravitational black hole, general relativity comes to the rescue to prevent planets from orbiting at the speed of light and beyond. For an electromagnetic black hole, general relativity comes to the rescue and saves element 137 from having electrons moving faster than the speed of light. However, even with general relativity, element 139 would still have electrons moving faster than light. According to Einstein, this is an impossibility. Thus proving that we still don’t understand 137.


Golden Ratio Proportions, achieved by using .618 & 1.618


Sumerian measurements began with .618, a tool used for building architecture was recently found which confirmed this understanding.

.618 x .618 = .382

360 (degrees) x .382 = 137 degrees, the most prevalent angle in nature

360 (degrees) x .618 = 222 degrees, the second most prevalent angle in nature

The Hebrew word קבלה (Kaballah) has a Gematria (numerical value) of 137. It means “parallel” or “corresponding”. It is used to describe the “corresponding loops” which, when clasped together, enjoined the two sections of the Tabernacle’s ceiling. These loops were suspended directly over the veil that divided the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. Symbolically, this is the threshold between the physical dimension and the utterly spiritual dimension. (A short section below about 222 will add to this mystery) In other words, at the boundary line of the physical world, the number 137 emerges. The wisdom of Kabbalah is to find correspondences between the mundane and spiritual levels of reality.

The Bible states that Ishmael, Levi, and Amram all lived to be 137 years old. The three appearances make it the most common lifespan of individuals in the Bible.

According to the verse in Genesis (17:17) there was a ten-year age gap between Abraham and Sarah. Sarah died at the age of 127 (Genesis 23:1), thus Abraham was 137 years old at her death. According to Rashi's commentary on Genesis 23:2, Sarah died when she heard that Isaac had almost been sacrificed, thus Abraham was 137 years old at the binding of Isaac.

The consensus within academia is that Jesus was 33 when he died, 137 is the 33rd prime number and the last number of which all of its numbers (1, 3, and 7) are prime.  

The Ark of Noah was 137 meters long.

The Great Pyramid in Egypt is 137 meters tall.

In Gematria the following equal 222;

First Born - Jacob - John The Baptist - See - Speak - Breadth -Teach - Bless - Multiply - Divine - Journey

There is much more to be said about the Golden Ratio but I have run out of time this afternoon. I must address some responsibilities. I would like to emphasize that I believe 137 and 222 will be the numbers which will connect our physical realm (science) with the spiritual realm (religion). I hope you have learned something of value.

May the source of the force of the vacuum be with all of you.

Apr 2, 19 8:44 pm  · 
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Non Sequitur

God is false. Pick a new hobby.

Apr 2, 19 9:18 pm  · 
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x-jla

Right angles are in lots of things that humans create. Humans are animals. Therefore right angles are found in nature.

Apr 2, 19 11:43 pm  · 
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( o Y o )



Time to pick a new god.

Apr 2, 19 11:52 pm  · 
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