J.D. Bernal: “The Analytic Theory of Point Systems”

J.D. Bernal is a pretty established name in the field of materials science and crystallography. I first learned about him when I came across his seminal  1959 Nature paper “A Geometrical Approach to the Structure of Liquids”

( http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v183/n4655/pdf/183141a0.pdf, Nature subscription is needed to read the whole paper) which discusses the random closed pack sphere model.  Also, searching his name as the author Nature database returns 72 hits which is pretty remarkable. Obviously I did not filter out the pure research letters from other entries.

Anyway, his first achievement seems to be his quaternion based analysis of crystallographic groups.  Despite the importance of the paper (or essay if you will), it was never published. Before the advent of the internet, in 1981, it was made available through Alan MacKay of Birkbeck College, University of London.  After an e-mail inquiry, Prof. MacKay informed me that IUCR has finally made it publicly available through their website. You can reach it from the link; http://www.iucr.org/education/teaching-resources/bernal-essay

The primitive typing format makes it a tough read, so in near future I hope to decipher and rework the details and re-type everything in Latex and make it available for those who are interested.

Slayer as a mnemonic device!

Now, this is could easily be my most stupid post that has appeared here, yet I can`t resist it. The term “Killing Fields” refer to two different things. Mathematically, a Killing Field is a vector field which generates isometries(therefore preserves the metric structure) on a pseudo-Riemannian Manifold. For the layman terms, it is an abstract mathematical construct invented by the 19 century German mathematician Wilhelm Karl Joseph Killing. It is also the name of a famous 1984 movie with 3 oscars. Lastly, it is a song with pathetic lyrics(great drumming though) by the trash metal band Slayer from their 1994 album “Divine Intervention” . I don`t watch the movie often, yet the song perennially resides in my IPOD. Whenever I listen to it, a certain view pops to my mind in which Tom Araya(Singer/Bassist) and Kerry King(Guitarist) is battling with differential geometry books to master the subject! And it brilliantly works as a visual mnemonic device for me to remember the pertinent differential geometric concepts (although I rarely need them). Apparently the more wide-stretching/illogical connections you make, the better is your memory response.

Devrin arabalari…

Devrim Arabaları filmine biraz da tesadüfi olarak gittikten sonra ne zamandır aklımda dönüp dolaşan bir kaç şeyi yazı olarak toparlamanın zamanı geldi sanırım. Film benim için herşeyin ötesinde hiç tanımadığım 23 mühendis için hakedilmiş ama bunca gecikmiş bir kaç saatlik bolca ses ve ışık yüklü bir defindi. Zaten bu işin milat olan tarafı otomobil sanayinin yoktan oluşması değil, çünkü 1928 yılından beri (Bernard Nahum’un anlattığı ve 1928 yılında OTTAŞ’ın atelyesinde izlediğini söylediği bir otomobil montajını başlangıç kabul edersek) bu endüstri bir süreklilik halinde şimdiye kadar devam etmiş.

Devrim Arabaları’nda anlatılan şey, en yalın haliyle, 129 günde bir otomobilin oldukça garip ve kötü koşullarda tasarlanıp yapılmasının travmatik öyküsü. Bu film çekilene kadar da pek anlatılmamış bir hikaye olarak kaldı. Gerçi belki hala da öyle gişede nasıl bir hayalkırıklığı yaşadıklarını düşününce pek kimseye ilginç gelmedi belli ki. Sinema teorisi açısından eleştirisini yapmaya gönüllü bir çok insan illa ki çıkacaktır ama çoğunun bilgisizlikten atlamak kalacağını düşündüğüm detayların bazıları sarsıcı; hedef kitlenin ürkütücülüğü ve akli uyuşukluğuna rağmen gerçek bir motor bloğunun dökülmüş, prototip gövdelerdense hem de iki tanesinin hazırlanmış olması benim için hala akıl alır gibi değil. Detaylar konusunda böylesi bir sadakati Werner Herzog gibi nadirler dışında bulmak pek mümkün değilken zaten umursamayacak insanlar için yapmak övgüden başka bir hisle nasıl ifade edilebilir?

Bu travmayı o mühendis grubu dışında hiç kimse ne gerçekten yaşadı ne de bir an olsun taşıdı; bu işe girişen insanları tanımıyoruz bile işte… O yüzden bu tarihe ortak olmayı hakedecek, hakettirecek hiç birşey yok. Devrim, özünde doğru düzgün bilmediğimiz, isimlerini filan de pek umursamadığımız 23 kişiye ait, pratikte ise son kalan prototiple Eskişehir’de canları sıkılınca Devrim ile pide almaya gittikleri söylenen TCDD çalışanlarına…Bunları hangi büyüklükte olursa olsun, bayrakla falan örtemeyiz değil mi? Ne bize ait utancı, ne de hala çalışan bu arabayı…

Sonunda bu adamlar aslında bir arabanın yapılabilirliğini veya otomobil sanayisinin zaten atılmış temelini sıfırdan oluşturmaktan başka birşey yaptılar. Devrim’in bizim bildiğimiz tasarımı metal şekillendirmedeki ilkel imkanların dikte ettiği bir şeydi, o yüzden haklı olarak toplu üretim ile ilişkisi baştan beri yoktu. Belki karolanmış petek şekillerinden oluşan ön ızgarayı bu bağlamda bir meydan okuyuş sayabilirim, sadece fonksiyonla açıklanamayacak yapısından dolayı.

Bir de tabi sözlü popüler tarih içinde devam eden hikayesinin artık yeni tekrarları kaldırmayacak kadar yinelenmiş olduğu Anadol var, burada ondan da bahsetmek lazım. Cam elyaf bazlı kompozit gövdesi dışında belki hemen kimsenin bilmediği şey Anadol’un ileriki bir versiyonun Reliant firması aracılığı ile de olsa Bertone gibi gibi öenmli bir tasarım stüdyosuna tasarlatılmasıdır(sonunda buna ciddi şekilde sahip cıkan Citroen, BX olarak pazarladığı bu tasarımdan epey de para kazandı). Tasarım kültürünün olmadığı bir yerde bunun yapılmış olması, otomobil gibi butik bir şeyin tasarlatılmış olması beni ister istemez heyecanlandırıyor biraz buruk da olsa. Üretim şeklinin temelde akrilik küvetlerinkiyle aynı olması neyi değiştirir ki? Kaldı ki o nasıl yapılıyor biliyor musunuz bile?

Aklın, sürekli olarak karikatürize edildiği bu yerde, ortaya çıkan otomobilin de sonunda bir sürü ilgisiz insanın ortasında dört tekerlekli tören maskotundan başka birşey olmayacağını bile bile böylesi bir şeyin parçası olmayı kaçımız kabul edebilir ki? Benim için bu film yaklaşık iki saatlik bir sessiz özür dileme ve günah çıkarma seansıydı, ama ne Türkiye umrumdaydı, ne devrimler, ne ulus, ne ulusal onur ne de başka bir şey. Şu an yürüyen o son arabada da bir tek o insanlar var zaten, kalan herşeyi yanlarında cüceleştiren…Tekrar teşekkürler her birinize; böyle bir ülkede mühendislik yaptığınız/yapabildiğiniz için…

You rise, you fall, you’re down and you rise again…

I was just re-reading one of my very first posts on this blog which I posted before Metallica’s Death Magnetic was out and I have promised therein for another post after they have launched it.
So here is my view of the new album: There are solos in the new album happily in accordance with my former wishes so that is a quick plus. And there is a new instrumental called Suicide & Redemption after 20 years though not as striking as its predecessor To Live is to Die. In general, it is a leap forward from St. Anger and nothing like Load or Re-load, earning another plus. Shitty editing is gone largely, except for a dire need for remastering because the sound levels and the equailizer settings are rather uneven among the songs and which is unheard for Metallica and is extremely annoying in an IPOD with volume cranked up.
The solos sure are featuring swift fingerwinging licks but they are not nearly as innovative as they were in And Justice For All, just recall The Shortest Straw for instance for an amazing benchmark. The rhtym tone tying the whole thing together is very much “Diezel” (well James have been using a VH-4 for a while apparently)which is, and annoyingly for my taste, keeps on staying over-crunchy even when open string licks are palm-muted. Speaking of amps and guitars, there is nice link for youtube videos for an updated look to their current touring rig which I came across at Guitar Player’s magazine web site:
http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/exclusive-metallica-video/nov-08/90185

So, what else I can add to my scattered views on it? Well, lyrics solely written by James is a nice touch and very clever as to be expected from Hetfield flair. The drumming is tighter, better sounding, more techincal and fast. Well there is this age-defying statment scattered all over the album that is for sure. Trash and ageing bands do not go in hand in hand from a fans point of vantage obsivously.
What we do not know is how long they are going to be able to continue playing those songs proberly and without compromise. So my final verdict would be that I liked Death Magnetic. But by no means it gives you this spine shivering feel when you first start to hear the tape-reversed interlude to Blackened or the majestic end we now know as the Dyer’s Eve.

An Old Trabant Residing in a Living Room

Above on the left is a remarkable picture which I scanned from an old issue (24th to be exact) of Cogito (A philosophy periodical from Istanbul). Enis Batur credits it to a pre-2003 Le Monde special supplement on Cuba, but I have not been able to locate the original version through web or the school library (I would greatly appreciate anyone who would point out the original source). It is a photograph of an old Trabant (presumably a Trabant 601 or 1.1), replete with symbolisms in manifold contexts, the most insteresting of which to me is its undeniable artistic content and value. E.B. cleverly suggests that the couple have unknowingly created an art installation with a stunning outcome and I can not concur more. But, to me, there is also an inherent performance character as we can not isolate the car from the personal space(living room) it has modified and from the old couple staring at it. This is why this picture is so enticing to me in the first place. In its final form this is a monumental piece of performance, reminding me the former UCLA professor Chris Burden’s performances with a VW Beetle (shown on right). But the Le Monde picture is something more; this car apparently acts as a storage device for the old couple incessantly unpacking distant memories as they spectate it. By the way, the Trabants themselves are no strangers to art installations and performances, the most famous ones being the three cars used for U2’s Zoo TV tour of 1992-1993.

The original link for Burden’s Photo is:

http://www.zwirnerandwirth.com/exhibitions/2004/0904Burden/images/perf/transfixed.jpg

 

 

New and noteworthy on symmetry and solids…

For a couple of years since I got my self interested in computational crystallography, I have been voraciously searching for a nice and updated account of crystallography and rarely found anything worth mentioning so far except for Bradley and Cracknell`s  Mathematical Theory of Symmetry in Solids, but come on…It is rare, hard to find and it was published in 1972! Apparently the physicists, as a community, while never getting tired of stressing the importance of symmetry in condensed matter systems (The so called first law of condensed matter physics is essentially about symmetry breaking…) conspiciously overlooks the structural symmetries.  For instance,from my humble experience there is no graduate level solid state/condensed matter course who rigorously fills this gap at MIT. They just describe the fundamentals of crystallographic indexing, the concept of reciprocal space and pertinent basis construction, some simple prototoypes and that`s it. Also absolutely no mention or whatsoever in how would those symmetries translate into electronic structure and the computation of band structures. I have never seen anyone teaching, at any level, the orbifold notation, cohomology and/or fourier space crystallography. The latter might be hard to integrate into a rather standardized solid state/condensed matter curriculum but a general coverage of the former (that is crystalline symmetries) is still a must. Oh by the way, there is not a single solid state text  in existence that does justice to this topic, not a single one… Ashcroft-Mermin and Marder  both give sketchy accounts of point group symmetry and almost no mention of space groups. Kittel sucks in this aspect as well (as it does in many cases expect for the treatment of reciprocal space maybe) and basically skips it. Grosso & Parravicini, as my favourite text as “the” long waited replacement to Ascroft-Mermin at the moment also simply ignores any mentioning of symmetry. Animalu(treats groups in an appendix) and Kaxiras are both better than the rest but does not fill the particular gap in its entirety. So physicists side is quite hopeless it seems! Now there have been two recent books published and when read together, they perfectly fill the absence of nice texts at least from more of a materials scientists point of view. First one is by Gregory Rohrer , Structure and Bonding in Crystalline Materials and does a very nice job of introducing symmetries and their effect on the deciphering of x-ray data as well as some basic structural phenomena like the bonding and stability. But where it shines mostly is its nice coverage of structure prototypes in detail which is extremely relevant to the current trend of materials informatics and structure prediction.The other book is by McHenry and De Graef and bears the title; Structure of Materials: An Introduction to Crystallography, Diffraction and Symmetry. This is even a deeper book in its coverage of symmetry and group theory. It is cogently written, very well illustrated and needless to say rather complete(although not as mathematical as Bradley & Cracknell).  So it looks like the only viable option is to supplement solid state readings with these two praiseworthy recent launches and personally build the missing connections…. But I salute the authors, all of whom are from Carnegie Mellon for their efforts in both cases, while reserving my disappointment with the book market on solid state theory which is mostly populated with reduntant books. I wish I could see why.

Fazlur Kahn`s Legacy

 

    

Very few people seem to remember (or even know) the name but we actually owe him a lot due to his pioneering structural designs on supertall skyscrapers, including my all time favorite Sears Tower in Chicago (Bruce Graham(Skidmore Owings and Merrel), 1974).  At the heart of his contributions lie the tubular structural systems (bundled, trussed etc.). At certain points might fundamentally limit architectural exploration but their merits more than compensate everything that might have been taken away from the architect this way.  Moreover, we have to analyze skyscrapers with their relation to the city skyline as in a city like Chicago the building-surrounding relation is not assessed through the street level but through the changes in city’s skyline cluster. Besides, super tall buildings like Sears tower are not perceived as externally introduced artifacts (or substitutional defects let`s say ) when the pertinent city has identified itself with vertical development, again the notable examples being Chicago and the New York City. A simple formed black glass facated skyscraper like the Seagram building (Mies van der Rohe,1957) might be absurd in Dublin, but in New York, it becomes a hallmark of modernism and elegance. While we fundamentally analyze and perceive skyscrapers as reduced shapes like boxes; such a reductionist approach unveils the importance of one thing, the proper blending of right proportions with geometry. An apt illustration of this is the John Hancock tower in Chicago. No building does look higher than the “Big John”; in this case the X shaped exoskeletal cage along with a continuously tightening anodized aluminum silhouette creates a very unique (and frigtening!) effect for the people looking upside. This form has essentially been guided by and finalized  in accordance with Fazlur Kahn`s novel designs. I personally haven’t seen anything quite like that. Tubular design also serves another purpose; as much as you take out structural elements to the outside there will be more undivided room left for the design of office and/or residential space. And that gives you a lot; like the highest indoor swimming pool in the world (44th floor of the John Hancock bulding), which is undeniably a cool thing. With all these said, we can confidently reckon that Fazlur Rahman Kahn still remains unchallenged among civil engineers with his impact on the skyscraper design in provoking the quintessential architectural route.

 

Blaschka Glass Flower Collection

I have first heard of Blaschka Glass Flower collection in a small article from Scientific American. Irrespective of my late acquaintance with them, they apparently have attracted considerable  popular and scholarly attention  for almost a century so I had to go. And I didn’t have any excuse for postponing my long scheduled visit to the Harvard Museum of Natural History as it was now in close proximity of my house in East Cambridge. First of all, it was considerably and suprisingly better than what I  expected and honestly I had tuned my expectations rather high. To my delight I saw that the glass replicas were not limited to the real life samples of different plants but extend to the organs of flowers like the pistils(gynoecium) and stamen(androecium). Moreover, in most cases there were several scaled cross sections of those organs. It was sheer beauty what I have experienced there and I kneeled before the uncompromising dedication to nature`s original designs as well as the incredible glass craftmanship involved in. And I should know how to judge this, as all my childhood has been around Sisecam`s (the major glass producer of Turkey) production space due to my father`s position there. I went to the museum to take some photographs to document my visit but the poor illumination, the tight juxtaposition of different species and the worn out glass encapsulations were proving to be major obstacles and impeding my work in a concerted fashion. But the biggest drawback was on my side, my Nikon S-6 (which is not even a D-SLR), nothwitstanding it`s cool design and cool electronic features like the built-in wi-fi, rarely results in  good photographical results expecially for shots from close distances. So I will return back later this week with Kerem`s old school 35mm Nikon to compansate my first visit. However,  later this afternoon, using the poorly taken photographs from the collection as templates (but not merely playing on the with the tools in the program instead  I actually drew everything by myself), I could manage to come up with some cool looking pop-art-like creations through Adobe Illustrator; well much alike what you would buy from an Urban Outfitters store for your house/dorm. Anyway, I might actually scale up some these to put into my house as well.

 

 

 

  

Orhan Pamuk and the New Yorker

New Yorker is one of my personal obessions and pretty much the only Conde-Nast publication which  I can`t resist to read on a weekly basis albeit being less sensational than Vanity Fair or the Vogue (I still quite like these two magazines and the corresponding sensational stuff though…). Recently, Orhan Pamuk`s translated writings have repeatedly appeared on couple of different occasions and I hoped  I would see him on a regular basis. Although it isn’t a common  practice for New Yorker to spare a regular slot for a non-staff writer, I wouldn’t be unhappy to see that as a first. As Pamuk is physically apart from Istanbul, we would like to see what he has to say as an aspiring New Yorker. Details of his diurnal routine is unknown to me apart from the fact that he is teaching at Columbia (formerly he has taught at Columbia spanning the period 1985-1988) and he has bought a house near the campus¹ but I would rather follow him through literary output anyway. Speaking of his New York life it was quite a news that he has bought an apartment on the 351 Riverside Drive which was designed by William Tuthill who has mainly gathered his reputation as the architect of the famous Carnegie Hall. However there is another Turkish connection to this story and an interesting one; William Tuthill has also been known as the achitect of the Schinasi (apparently derived from “Sinasi” in Turkish ) Manor, an edifice whose owner was an immigrant Jewish tobacco merchant originally from the Aegean town of Manisa².  Turning back to his home, I can say that our personal tastes; both in terms of the choice of location and pure architectural context greatly overlaps, albeit there is no such overlap in terms of his financial prowess and my lackthereof!But I am pretty happy both on behalf of him and for myself as an avid reader after he moved (albeit not in a permanent manner, I guess…) because much alike all great writers, he writes the city he is from, and until now it has been Istanbul. Now that he is partly becoming a New Yorker we can expect some totally new output because New York City is a rather fertile ground for creativity. I honestly don`t think that he is in any sort of exile (I think he doesn’t perceive himself that way too) as a lot of people tend to think and romanticize, so comparing him to the later years of James Joyce and making predictions wouldn’t be that relevant  in my opinion.  At this point there might arise a problem though, if he writes quickly so as not to leave any noticeable gap with his former works and his new launch, the novel might not turn out to be that great because in this sceneraio, he won’t have been fused with his new hometown and fully soaked up with the bringings of this new culture. But even if this is true, can we wait? Are we willing to wait that long? Probably not in general and definitely not for myself. So my humble suggestion would be that he could get started via short works that might for instance be published  in the New Yorker`s fiction section. This is of course with the understanding that I have no idea on the inner-workings of the magazine and the pertinent publishing procedures. There is also the issue that it is becoming less of a literary magazine than it was in 60-70 years ago (I just happened to check on very old issues from 1929 and there were around 4-5 fictions published on a single issue.)

1) http://www.observer.com/2007/sold-his-name-orhan-nobel-novelist-pamuk-buys-riverside-1-8-m

2) The Marble Manor That Turkish Tobacco Built” Christopher Gray, The New York Times, May 4, 1997

A Ten String Guitar Below $2000

 

Since I first saw Narciso Yepes playing Asturias on a 10 string guitar, I  have been hunting for one these instruments but not to avail until now  as any luthier I asked would quote a price well beyond my reach. Now, at $1750, there is a promising model endorsed by Janet Marlow and I am seriously considering to order one at some point. It has been around for quite a while yet very few people seem to know about it. I will write on this again when I have a chance to actually own one.