imaginary bridge

Last night I checked out this week's CS reading and get this: it includes a definition of "Gods" as "supposition of sentient physicality", moving the glossary to the top of my list! in summary, define a concept by it's utmost implication (utmost being a bit foggy, but still) might make a mess of math, or might help it along. brings to mind Rylan's description of her "imaginary bridge" as a machine for calculating the value of i.

(you know, (-1)^(1/2). or maybe you don't, in which case you should call me. I'd say ask google, but it'll just tell you to ask answers.qualm who doesn't really know. today's illustration, by the way, shows google using much more conventional, and in this case useless, definition methods than Mary Baker Eddy. in my other hand, I could be less single-minded and just suggest you ask your definer about "imaginary numbers"; 'i' standing for 'imaginary' anyways. but really we're talking about definitions, and "standing for" isn't really one.)

Rylan's machine, according to her, enacts Euler's formula by making damped wiggles from step functions popping (that's her bridge, between digital and analog computation). She threw in as an aside that another way of enacting this reality would be to iterate a step forward followed by a rotation back, which I couldn't follow, but someday I'll ask --depending on who you are (define by act) you might be the first to know.

If I had the same question in front of me I'd focus on stereo. the feelings of separation and togetherness, touching, that I guess the word "bridge" starts to get right. parallel worlds put into distant communication. orthogonality making a space between worlds that can't touch. perhaps my vexation at rylan's bridge is that it connects worlds of diferent types, of wholly different character, so their touching or not comes as no surprise at all.

there's something fake about rigor

my solution is moving to the tip of my tongue but isn't even there yet. I'll ammend this post when I finally hear what I think come out of my mouth. for now I'll say 'series of similar pryings, complex pairs, quaternions, non-commutivity, non-commutivity back-formation'

in the meantime, I'll delay with another side note: putting the glossary in front in S&H, makes it much like Irwin's Dictionary of Pipe Organ Stops, my original inspiration to stereo thinking, it's ancient forshadowing being the reconstruction of an Emily Dickinson poem from a concordance of her works (this also lighting my path to incipits)

I'll spend my day off on thank you notes!