Cliff Pickover

Increase your sense of wonder. (Author of 50 books & 800 patents. Yale Ph.D.) "Pickover contemplates realms beyond our known reality." ~NY Times

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Ask me anything.

I will be happy to answer some of your questions, and will try to reply to a portion of your questions below in the coming days.

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Mathematics.

“Islamic Fibonacci Spiral.”

Source: Anita Chowdry, https://t.co/zxJPlMigiV

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Reality Explained. Different models. Simplicity versus complexity. Evolution of human thought.

Source: Malin Christersson, https://t.co/FYrkqSTND5, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

"We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any point and to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes forever."
~Blaise Pascal
Art: @pislices, https://t.co/8pfvsIjWhu, Used with permission.

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Mathematics, physics, astronomy, universe.

Let there be reality....

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Math. Symphony of Symmetry: 12 Masterpieces of Graph Theory.

Gallery of "named graphs": Markström graph, McGee graph, Meredith graph, Moser spindle, Sousselier graph, Poussin graph, Robertson graph, Sylvester graph, Tutte's fragment, Tutte graph, Young–Fibonacci graph, Wagner graph. https://t.co/7R8MwZhRPk

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

“A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.”

— G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology, 1941

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Math.

This formula caught my eye today. This tweet is dedicated to all of you who stare at this tweet for more than 3.14 seconds. Source: https://t.co/Duo9J9tAQg

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Golden Ratio Calendar: Duration of Days of the Week.

By Gianni A. Sarcone, https://t.co/TPcMYPDvCv, used with permission. [math, maths]

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

@materion Additional info on the visualization: https://t.co/AWHHo6eKZP

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Mathematics. "Arjen's Comet."

Credit: Arjen Dijksman, @materion, sent me this creative visualization.

Draw a semicircle. The square roots magically emerge. Intersection points are labeled by their distances to the origin (0,0). The intersections of the perpendiculars with the circle determine the square root series. Here, circle diameter is 6.

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

This is Grace Hopper (1906–1992). She was a computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral.

COBOL was designed in 1959 by CODASYL and was partly based on the programming language FLOW-MATIC designed by Grace Hopper.

Image: https://t.co/Iwg3TCwgj2

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Mathematics, physics, chaos. Apparent unpredictability. Life explained.

The "Lorenz Attractor." Little blue butterflies, circulating forever.

Source: https://t.co/GivloDIDmc, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Mind shatter.

"This tweet is dedicated to all of you who believe...."

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

“Perhaps an angel of the Lord surveyed an endless sea of chaos, then troubled it gently with his finger. In this tiny and temporary swirl of equations, our cosmos took shape.”

—MARTIN GARDNER, “Order and Surprise,” 1950

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Reality Explained.

Imagine having a brain, big enough to fully appreciate "Penrose Graphical Notation." They look like blueprints from another world. Source: https://t.co/beilFsuG2a

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Mathematics.

Wow. Draw a magenta vertical line at x=1. Next, draw semicircles from 0 to n. The heights of the intersection points on the magenta line create the ascending square roots shown. Which "God" decided this would be the best way to set up the universe?

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Mathematics. Memory aid.

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

He finally did it!

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Music for Angels and Aliens.

"Symphony of the Impossible Void, Op. ∞"

Let's listen to this as we drift off to sleep tonight.

[Cliff Pickover @pickover]

Mathematicians dream of π.

Let's imagine handing this to space-faring extraterrestrials as a gift, or to determine how many of these they have discovered themselves.

This equation set is circulating widely on the web. Example: https://t.co/nU4QkAg1ig