Thursday, May 01, 2008

Spherical animal

Happy international workers' day.
For some reason (unrelated to the previous) reminded Plato and his spherical animal/universe when I saw this sphere came up, so that's why the quote.



In the likeness of what animal did the Creator make the world? It would be an unworthy thing to liken it to any nature which exists as a part only; for nothing can be beautiful which is like any imperfect thing; but let us suppose the world to be the very image of that whole of which all other animals both individually and in their tribes are portions. For the original of the universe contains in itself all intelligible beings, just as this world comprehends us and all other visible creatures. For the Deity, intending to make this world like the fairest and most perfect of intelligible beings, framed one visible animal comprehending within itself all other animals of a kindred nature.

[...]

Now to the animal which was to comprehend all animals, that figure was suitable which comprehends within itself all other figures. Wherefore he made the world in the form of a globe, round as from a lathe, having its extremes in every direction equidistant from the centre, the most perfect and the most like itself of all figures; for he considered that the like is infinitely fairer than the unlike.

Plato, "Timaeus", (First main section).

2 comments:

Stargazer said...

Wow, this image is awesome! The colors and contours are so full of life (constant movement).

Very nice :-)

runnerfrog said...

Thanks Deb.
I thought this would make a nice animation, but I'm still struggling with the software to evolve without making the image too noisy, and to render with enough quality without waiting a month for a result.
If I can fix the software enough, I will use a processing cluster.

Blog Archive