spheres

Spheres

by Bob on July 12, 2007

A sphere, ball, or round object. This is used by mankind in many ways and it is ubiquitous. Especially as a source of joy, sport and many other uses.

We see that its use on sports is almost absolute. A soccer ball, a baseball, a volley ball, and the like. It rolls well. It bounces well and uniformly. And it can travel steadily in a relative straight line.

Imagine if soccer were played with a square cube or triangular (tetrahedron) three dimensional object. That would make the game very odd indeed.

Then again, a sphere for a pair of dice wouldn't work too well ! But the dice are designed to stop their motion. In theory a ball could roll on forever, according to Newton, were there no resistence or adhesion or friction. But we digress.

Sometimes also, a sphere can be soothing. Many "stress balls" are spheres, and also we can hearken back to the brilliant 1973 movie by Woody Allen, "Sleeper" wherein he and Diane Keaton hold an orb in their hands for pleasure.

Chinese steel balls, in a pair, used in one hand for exercise of the muscles give the hand a pleasureful sensation. Again it soothes. These steel balls can be traced back to the Chinese city of Boading in the Ming Dynasty as a point of reference.

The universe is made up of planets which are modeled as spherical. Perhaps all space might be somewhat spherical or bend inwards like a sphere as some physicists wrote in their theses.

One also recalls the classical "Music of the Spheres" and the hypothesised music that the planets make if not as a sound as a heavenly dance. The Pythagoreans were very much believers in that, as was Plato later, in his Republic and Timaeus.

Johannes Kepler, writing on the celestial bodies and their movements, in the 17th century, alludes to this cosmic harmonic motion and harmony as well.

So we see that even musical ratios are to be considered as motivated by the movement of spheres.

There is something profoundly magical and yet pleasing about a sphere. Perhaps it tells us secrets of our universe. As the ancients thought. Let's not even get into crystal ball gazing as a profoundly meditative and entrancing device. Intersecting crystal balls in our worldly consciousness.

Robert Burton wrote in his "Anatomy of Melancholy" in 1621 that:

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"The sun and moon (some say) dance about the earth, the three upper planets about the sun as their centre, now stationary, now direct, now retrograde, now in apogee, then in perigee, now swift then slow, occidental, oriental, they turn round, jump and trace, ? and ? about the sun with those thirty-three Maculae or Bourbonian planet, circa Solem saltantes Cytharedum, saith Fromundus. Four Medicean stars dance about Jupiter, two Austrian about Saturn, &c., and all (belike) to the music of the spheres."

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And let us also not forget the brilliant 1993 song "Cannonball" by The Breeders. Rock on and roll on. Like a Rolling Stone.Which definitely gathers no moss.