Ridikool

My fixation about Random Mechanical Cascade (RMC) and the Galton Board

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 13:48:00 +0000

I have always been an avid reader - and happy paying subscriber - of Cabinet Magazine but I was particularly excited when – inside Issue 34 – D. Graham Burnett posted an article called GAMES OF CHANCE: testing the limits of the normal.

The article says that Victorian statistician Francis Galton called the Gaussian bell-curve, the “Law of Frequency of Error“ , a curve – D. Graham Burnett explains – “that could help disprove the existence of God”, something “vigorously anticlerical Galton wanted to preach about, and as an aid in his proselytizing efforts he commissioned the London instrument makers Tisley & Spiller to build for him a clever demonstration device of his own design, now known as a Galton Board”

Fast forwarding to recent days, physicist Robert G. Jahn - dean of the School of Engineering at Princeton University – and his collaborator Brenda Dunne finally build something Francis Galton would have loved, without knowing that “it took the better part of a year (and something close to $100,000) to realize the handsome device that adorned the wall of the PEAR laboratory for some twenty years”

The article offers great pictures (all from courtesy of the PEAR Archives) about the model and how it works is explained again by Burnett: “a reservoir of little balls empties down through a funnel-like feeder into a pyramidal array of pins. Because of the particular configuration of the pins—which are arranged in what is known as a quincunx, the pattern used in orchards to give each tree maximum space by offsetting the rows—the balls in such a contraption fall out in the vertical columns in a distribution that approaches the normal. In fact, the whole system is an exact analogue of that coin toss exercise, since at each row of the board a falling ball hits a pin and has a theoretically equal chance of going right or left.

"For a ball to end up all the way at the extreme right at the bottom of the board it must have gone right every time it hit a pin—the equivalent of flipping a perfect streak of heads. What generally happens is that balls go left sometimes and right sometimes and thus end up in the middle channels at the bottom; the line traced by the tops of all the stacks of balls should be—if you have the thing on an even surface, if the pins are all in place, if the rules of chance are working as they ought—a good approximation of the normal curve”.

After reading the article my first reaction was to build one right away but - after some planning and taking into account my DIY incompetency - I happily discovered that a desk version of the Galton Board version was available for people like me!

I am writing this update as I have got it in the mail few days ago and I haven't stopped playing with it. Check the pic and the video here below and I have a question for you: why the Gauss curve in the video skews towards the right?

(c) Posted by FMass

When Josef Albers and Anni Albers went to Mexico

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 09:38:00 +0000

The post is inspired by this NYR article

(c) Posted by F-Mass

Maps as art: Rudi Meyer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 07:31:00 +0000

More info on his genius here

(Last pic shows his product design capabilities)

(c) Posted by F-Mass

Les formes du Emile Gilioli

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Aug 2016 08:39:00 +0000

Some useful info here.

and some selling prices history at Christie's

Augustin Lesage and his repetitions

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 May 2016 09:09:00 +0000

Drawings were "dictated by the dead, notably his younger sister, who had died at the age of three

Augustin Lesage (1876-1954) France.

(c) Posted by F-Mass

Richard Anuszkiewicz (Master Op-erator)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 11:46:00 +0000

Great profile here

(c) Posted by F-Mass

Have we all forgotten about Johannes Itten?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 13:52:00 +0000

I am sure we all have his books about colours

(c) Posted by F-Mass

Yaacov Agam: master of kinetics

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 13:38:00 +0000

He studied under the Bauhaus’ color-theoretician Johannes Itten

(c) Posted by F-Mass

Werner Nöfer: master of the analog instrument

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Aug 2015 12:39:00 +0000

Some info about Werner here (in German)

(c) Posted by F-Mass

Harry Bertoia Came From Pordenone

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 19 May 2015 12:38:00 +0000

He will never cease to amaze me. Nice piece on WaPo

His new CD collection Kickstarter.

(c) Posted by F-Mass

Roger Brown was born in Alabama

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 09:30:00 +0000

His story and more of his paintings here

(c) Posted by F-Mass

Assemblages and drawings of Lenore Tawney

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 07:26:00 +0000

More about Lenore and her works.

(c) Posted by F-Mass

Summer of Italian Radicalism: Gruppo 9999

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 10:32:00 +0000

Gruppo 9999 (Giorgio Birelli, Carlo Caldini, Fabrizio Fiumi, Paolo Galli)

More info and work here

(c) Posted by F-Mass

Uber-künstlerr: Uli Pohl

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 10:08:00 +0000

Some info in German here

(c) Posted by F-Mass

The Fantastic Realism Of Ernst Fuchs

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 14:19:00 +0000

Amazing bio and fantastic works.

(c) Posted by F-Mass

John Plumb: a very distinguished English painter

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 09:29:00 +0000

Info here. Some of his work at the Tate.

(c) Posted by F-Mass

Master of Kinetics: Peter Sedgley

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 11:10:00 +0000

Check his website for more amazing works and movies

(c) Posted by F-Mass

Marcel Storr: a visionaire and clandestine creator

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 11:20:00 +0000

More info including a movie can be found here.

His works took part in the Alternative Guide to the Universe show in London.

(c) Posted by F-Mass

The fantastic world of Bodys Isek Kingelez

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 13:08:00 +0000

More work and bio here.

(c) Posted by F-Mass

The comfort of the loop: RIP Ruth Asawa

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 05:48:00 +0000

Ruth passed away this month at the age of 87. More here.

Also, check this interview with Ruth.

(c) Posted by F-Mass

My Kind of Abstract Lady: Tauba Auerbach

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 11:58:00 +0000

Check all her amazing work here.

Then when you are ready to buy call Barbara Krakow.

El Constructivista Rogelio Polesello

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 May 2013 09:16:00 +0000

Have a look at his impressive CV

(c) Posted by F-Mass

Uber-Bauhaus: Herbert Bayer [1900-1985]

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 09:32:00 +0000

Bayer created the lowercase alphabet as the style for all Bauhaus printing

Homage to Edna Andrade (1917-2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:27:00 +0000

Edna Andrade: an early master of op-art

(c) Posted by F-Mass

The Hard Edge Op-Art of Roy Ahlgren

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 11:49:00 +0000

Catalogue raisonne here.

(c) Posted by F-Mass