MANIPULATING IMAGES TO CREATE KNOWLEDGE


I pieced together an understanding of the vision and accomplishments of these explorers of strange worlds/ of knowledge from a couple of interviews which the wizard gave. Yes. A scientist can also be seen as a wizard. No less a wizard because he is not seen as dealing with the so called supernatural. Like his fellow wizards from supposedly non-scientific domains and cultures, he is exploring the farthest reaches of knowledge, reaches not available to the average human being, reaching after knowledge that can only be arrived at through years of disciplined training, through the development of powers of underststanding that are not common among humans. These are the words of the scientist, the explorer in strange fields of knowledgewho wants to wrest from the unknown a piece of itself and compel it/into becoming a part of the known:

[Faux and I]wrote this paper where we show that mathematics, which has the usual form of the equations, the equal signs, the plus signs, a particular set of mathematics, is completely equivalent to some pictures. We were astounded that these pictures contained every single piece of information that a complicated set of equations contain [We] developed the math as topology, using pictures with coloured strings and dots (looking just like macramé).[Topology is the mathematical study of the properties that are preserved through deformations, twistings, and stretchings of objects][1]

All the information from the equations is in these pictures which we have called adinkras. Once you create these pictures from the equations, there are things you can see more clearly than you can from a page of figures and numbers. It is a visual representation of mathematics. It’s like finding another language to understand something.


[The]the most remarkable thing about this graphical technology is[its kinetic character] [because]by manipulating the picture, by moving the pieces in [the] picture[thereby transforming the picture] you are actually changing the equations that the picture corresponds to[transforming the equations as well] Adinkra is an Ashanti (West African) word meaning symbols with hidden meaning. Well, our pictures certainly do have hidden meaning, so it seemed an appropriate name for us to appropriate.[2]

[1] WolframMathworld at http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Topology.html. Accessed on 10th January 2007.

[2] Composite extracts from Interview:James Gates: Theoretical Physicist by Ziya Tong in Wired Science at http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience/story/article/199 transcript_james_gates_extended_interview.html. Accessed 10th January 2007. and “Shy Since Star Shines”, UWANEWS The University of Western Australia,31 July 2006,Volume 25,No.10.8.

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