Mathematics
The ancient arts: Geometry
Often attributed to Kepler is a statement of the nature of the following. I don’t seem to have a copy of the Mysterium Cosmographicum handy, so I’ll parrot what I found at goldennumber.net:
“Geometry has two great treasures: one is the Theorem of Pythagoras; the other, the division of a line into extreme and mean ratio. The first we may compare to a measure of gold; the second we may name a precious jewel.” –Johannes Kepler
I’ve always been a fan of Kepler since I was in Holland and studied 16th century science. As Sagan said, he was the last of the mathematical astrologer or the first astronomer.
Fascinating: Why we should let go of π in favor of τ
As a person who took Trigonometry as an adult (at 29!), I was amazed by how much more fascinating the relationship between π and radii became. I even spent some time building squares of golden sections with a compass, just like the ancients used to. In this post below, Vi Hart makes a compelling argument that we should move on from π and move to τ. It’s a fascinating concept, but what I like most about it is that it still preserves some of the aesthetic mysteries that fundamental trigonometry provides.
Adding Unicode symbols at the command line in Mac OSX using iTerm2
Unicode bumper sticker
I assembled the following answer by finding several disparate pieces to the puzzle, but I didn’t find an all-in-one explanation. So here’s how I did it.
As someone who has studied several European languages and a notation system or two, I really like having access to the special symbols unique to a language. While OSX makes it easy to enter the standard Latin character set “special” glyphs like é thanks to ( ⌥+e, e ), other characters are not so easy to find without a “character picker” like logic and set theory “?” or the Dutch “?