TM Gallery

Monday, January 2, 2017

Driving south on the interstate for the third day

The year advances as we arrive in a warmer place

Renting again in southwest Florida for the third year

We are snow birds returning to our wintering grounds.

Daydreaming on cruise control as the miles go by

Thinking about retracing the same route on the same day

My personal travel aligned with the movement of the earth

Marking the start of a new year.

The sum of all my distance vectors is zero

From when I last moved along this road to now

Including the distance vectors traveled by the earth itself

Moving through its annual ellipse.

I like the notion of individual and global motion in parallel

Though my perambulation does not trace an ellipse

And we do not return to the same place

When time flows past ever increasing the distance.

Last night I told you the definition of a constant distance from two points

How you can trace an ellipse with a loop of string going around

The two points and a pencil pulling the string taut

Or draw a circle that way if the two points are superimposed.

And today I am wondering about what happens with three points

Drawing a curve using a loose loop of string around them

Trying to visualize how the constant length of string

Determines the curve formed by the pencil.

The string pulls tight across two sides of the triangle

And the string on the third side traces a section of an ellipse

So what results would be three elliptical sections

And now I see the pattern for however many points.

I enjoy thinking about mathematical abstractions

But there’s something that puzzles me about the earth’s orbit

If the sun is one focus of the elliptical path

Where is the other one never marked on any diagram?

Tuesday, January 3, 2017