|
mirror symmetry in the eye and hand of my grandson My grandson, his fifth birthday just a couple of weeks away, regularly amounts several drawing hours per day, every day. He likes bright colors and real drawing pad. but in a less favorable conditions he would draw with a pencil on any type of paper. And he explains his drawings in elaborate details. Children’s drawing are abundant these days and I don’t feel an urge for a general overview. However, I would like to point out one particular aspect: I’m impressed and puzzled with a high level of mirror symmetry in my grandson’s drawings, practically all of them. Take a look at the drawing on the right, then rollover to see yet another in which he even tried to mirror his name. So, it is not that he is drawing symmetrical objects from his environment, including books, he is producing the mirror symmetry. That’s also apparent in the way he makes a drawing, going alternatively from right to left side and back, adding the same detail right then left, many times, many details. |
|
|
| The mirror symmetry of my grandson’s drawings is a construct of his mind, I’m convinced. Prompted by what, that’s the next big question. And how he will handle other symmetries, to be "discovered" soon, I believe. |
In our description of the world around us, we follow very definite and clear patterns. From the ancient Greeks we inherited a philosophical attitude to correlate symmetry of those patterns with beauty, harmony, perfection, and deep understanding of Nature. The attitude resulted in high achievements in natural sciences and technologies, being driven to extremes in the physics of elementary particles. And yet, there is no guaranty that some fundamental symmetries would one day reveal the fundamental laws of structure and dynamics of Nature. The symmetry could be a construct of our mind, rather then a property of Nature, invented by us to describe Nature. |
WEBSITE EDITOR:
Krešimir J. Adamić
