What’s Behind the E8 Ball?

A continuation on my E8 theme, but a deeper inquiry into the mystery of its symmetries.

New videos of some of my work.

Xenophile Neurocam recently posted some machinima footage that he shot at my Rezzable Visions show in October 2008:

http://blip.tv/file/2514901/

Kumi Kuhr posted a short machinima video shot of my 6,672 prim E8 Polytope structure built on Butler sim:

http://blip.tv/file/1945189/

Nitwacket published machinima video of Burning Life 2008 which includes some footage of my build “It Came from the 8th Dimension”:

http://blip.tv/file/1375230/

Lotus-like Flower Found Inside E8!

Copyright © 2009 Wizard Gynoid

This Lotus-like flower pattern was found inside the E8 Polytope.  I have colored it here with the seven colors of the rainbow, beginning with red at the center and ending with violet on the edges.

The same seven colors of the rainbow are used to color the seven chakras.

Copyright © 2009 Wizard Gynoid

Here we see the sequence in reverse, with violet on the inside and red on the outside.

New Logo

Double & Single Spirals Into the heart of the E8!

I’ve been dissecting the insides of the E8 Polytope.  I had an intuition that I could find a spiral in it.  After analyzing seven sets of squares that descend in size, I created the following:

Copyright © 2009 Wizard Gynoid

Then I was able to perceive a single four-color spiral:

Copyright © 2009 Wizard Gynoid

New Islamic-style Trellis-likeTile!

I was gazing at my RL painting of the E8 Polytope and I perceived an octagon and a unicursal octagram embedded in the center:

That got me thinking.  Could that shape be used to tile space?

That thought inspired me to try to build a tiled space using prims and this is the result:

Islamic-style Trellis-like Tile made from prims.

This is about 1,000 prims and can conceivably be used for wall dividers or latticeworks in Second Life and other Virtual Worlds.

Scope Cleaver and company check out the new tiling.

What else will I find in the E8?

E8 Painting in Real Life!

Lately,  I’ve been rendering some of my RL work in Second Life.

This time, it’s going the other way.  I’m painting a painting in Real Life based on some of the work I’ve been doing in Second Life.

I decided to attempt a 3 foot by 3 foot painting of the E8 Polytope.  In Second Life, my E8 Polytope is three dimensional (and very complex.)  In fact, the latest version has 6,672 prims.  (Which makes it hard to find it a home on a 15,000 prim sim.)

Without further ado, here is the front view of the Concentric Circles Rotation of the 4_21 Gossett E8 Polytope:

3 foot by 3 foot painting of the E8 Polytope

Evidence of Extropy is in the Building.

Wizzy keeps building geometric objects of more and more intricacy and complexity.  Wizzy’s building is therefore necessarily Extropic.

6672 prim E8 Polytope

This is my latest project.  A 6672 prim E8 Polytope.  This one is more representative of the E8 than any of my previous attempts.  It took several attempts to successfully rez this object, and even so the sim creaked and groaned.

This particular rotation of the E8 Polytope is important because it shows *all* 240 of the vertices.  Each vertice can be seen above as a meeting of edge struts.

From this angle, we can see a clear hole on this axis going straight down through the object.  When flattened down to two dimensions this object would look this:

The 2D graph commonly recognized as the E8 Polytope

This 2D version has 240 recognizable vertices or nodes.  If Second Life had less perspective programmed into our view, from this axis or view we could see the object like this.

Some of you might wonder why I am so obviously obsessed with this object.  It is considered to be the most beautiful and elegant geometric object known to mathematicians.  That alone is probably reason enough…

But as I proceed with this obsession, at each step I learn more and more.  I gain a more intuitive grasp of what this thing is all about.  Each new discovery is a wonder and a joy.

Another axis of symmetry reveals itself

Where do I go from here?

The direction of higher complexity leads from the eighth dimension up to all 248 dimensions of the E8 Group.

The direction of lower complexity leads downward to the G2.  The cube-like, hexagonal symmetry of the G2 lends itself to demonstrations of how quarks and the strong force relate.

Next stop, G2.

Second Life CEO Mark Linden likes me!

Back in October 2008, I received an IM from someone named M Linden.  He told me he was looking at some of my work and wanted to buy some.  I asked him where he was and he said he was at Rezzable Visions.  So I immediately dropped everything and TP’d over there.

Chatting with M Linden

M Linden happens to be Mark Kingdon in Real Life, and he is the Chief Executive Officer of Second Life!

Luckily, I knew that when he IM’d me.

I helped him buy some of my stuff, and he said at the time that he wanted to put them up in his own personal sculpture garden in SL.  I went looking for his land at one point but it happens to be on protected Linden land, so I couldn’t get in to see what he did with it.

I thought that was the end of that.

Yesterday, Torley Linden posted a Tweet (on Twitter) about a Flickr picture of M Linden’s SL office.  I was ecstatic to find a picture of two of my sculptures floating over his office:

Two of my geometric sculptures floating over M Linden's office in SL.

I then went through all of Mr. CEO Linden’s posts on Flickr and found some more good shots of his visit to my Rezzable Visions build.

"I love this. Bought one from the creator and it's sitting on my roof :)"

Crashing Rezzable Alpha Open Sim Grid

My marching orders are to try to crash Rezzable’s Alpha Open Sim Grid.  So I set about to do that with a passion once scripting was turned on on my two regions.  Somehow Foolish Frost fixed the script engine, commenting that Rezzable Open Sim doesn’t use the Xengine script engine.  In that case, I would expect this grid to behave differently from the Reaction Grid.  So far, all behavior seems very similar.

Rezzing the E8 Concentric Circles Projection on Rezzable Alpha Grid

Next, I tried to “stretch” the object as large as I could, given the limitations of the Linden Lab viewer.  Initially I had a lot of problems getting the viewer to allow me to stretch.  It was acting kludgie and I think it might have had to do with the sim stats.  Check out the sim speed:

Note the Frame and Sim Times

After I relogged, I was able to “stretch” (after the selection tool accepted all 2956 prims).  With the ten meter limit on prim size however, it didn’t stretch much.

Stretching the object

After I stretched it to maximum, I moved it straight down to ground level.  This is easier said than done, because you’ve selected about 3,000 prims to move and the sim creaks and groans and complains.  It’s not done easily, let me just say that.

E8 Concentric Circles on Wizzy sim & Desde sim in the background.

Remarkably, with almost 3,000 active scripts on the region, I was able to rez a prim and create and compile a script afterwards.  Only one anomaly was noticed – I couldn’t “take” a prim that I should have been able to.  Instead I had to delete it and then restore it.  This small anomaly might count toward “crashing” the sim, but so far Rezzable Alpha has been resistant to my banging on it.  Will continue to do so tomorrow.

Goth Wizzy on Wizzy sim with Desde Sim in the background.