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Ahhh -- Fibonacci Alfredo -- my favorite! More McCormack wrote: >The ratio is not 0.618 but >rather 1.618 It is used by Architects from Greece to present times. >The proportion is : delta (Golden Section) = a/b=b/(a+b)=1.618 >The Nautulis shell follows this formula exactly. >The Fibonacci Series is very closley related because it is at the >same time additive and geometrical. The spiral of the Nautilus is also called a logarithmic spiral -- as More says, an additive progression laid up next to a geometrical progression. When I was in college one of our lab assignments was to map out such a spiral and, using that, make our own rudimentary slide rules. They worked, but you couldn't use them for toting up your grocery bill very well. Since these spirals appear in nature, we also spent a good deal of time ruminating over the question whether such mathematical elegance (that the human mind observes/interprets/imposes on the external world?) indicates that the physical world is a perfect mathematical construct, implying a rather clever Prime Mover who built it. Consequently, do we in fact have no free will, but labor under an illusion of freedom, when we are actually just part of a grand scheme of pre-destination? What is the value of this? Well, that and 6 dollars will get you a frankfurter at the Atlanta airport. Back to the diving question -- many people describe diving fatalities as being due to a "snowball" effect -- where problems compound rapidly and eventually become insurmountable. But I've had a sense for a long time that diving accidents are more like a logarithmic spiral. Lets call the "things" that we use when diving the elements of the additive progression. The regulators, lights, reels, and other pieces of equipment. And lets call the consumeables -- the gas, the time, the pressure, the thermal range -- the geometric components. In order to insure our safety ( prevent the spiral from ever developing) we try to counter the additive progression by redundancy. Duplicates of a failed device are brought in to play to arrest that progession/component of the spiral. For the consumables we use the principle of "balance/minimalize consumption and exposure." "Extra" gas, increasing levels of thermal protection/addition, optimimal mixes, staying shallow as allowable, etc. Now, when you have a problem, the merdre meets the maelstrom, and the spiral starts. An example: If you wind up with no viz and off the line (loss of "thing" and start of add. progr.), then the time/gas (consumables, start of geom. progr.) elements become the deciding factors. An entanglement or broken fin strap (more loss of things/additive) would increase the geo. progr. which has now started: The more time you spend searching and/or dealing with other probs., the more gas you use, and consequently the less time you have. The worse your situation (it's spiraling, remember), the more critical the consumables become -- until the point where even if you do recover the line (halt the add. progr.), it's useless. So we *can* do things to insure that there is no beginning of the add. progr. (redundancy, use the best) -- but what about the geo. progr.? The question becomes -- how best to also block the geo. progression and arrest the spiral? Rebreather? Speed? Breath control/panic control, certainly. Is there something we are overlooking? Something to be discovered? If anyone cares to ruminate on this, we can take it private and eliminate the risk of boring the rest. (Just remember to bring your 6 dollars.) Even if we don't come up with *anything*, the effort will still be more interesting, useful, and related to diving than gay-bashing. I'll be out of Dodge and unsubscribed from this Sat. until Oct. 4. Christopher A. Brown Sci-Graphica PR and DOCENT FILMS The Technical Diving Video Library (TDVL) (N.Am. & Canada): 1-800-373-7222 Outside US:904-942-7222 Fax:904-942-1240 Life is short -- this is not a rehearsal.
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