ambivalence

What are opinions but thoughts of one’s own to be shared but at times best kept at heart. Those who speak too much of their own are deemed contentious but too little makes one appear detached.
Opinions formed into words have the ability to offend if not cautiously kept at bay. However, we have no claim to be annoyed if the opinion attempts to correct our wrong actions. But corrosive opinions which do little to help are better off disregarded.

Take away these opinions then, and resolve to dismiss thy judgment about an act as if it were something grievous, and thy anger is gone. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11, No. 18

In other words, let opinions be taken away, and nobody will think themselves wronged. If nobody shall think themselves wronged, then wrongness cease to exist. The emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius suggested that when you feel exasperated and out of patience, be reminded that “this mortal life endures but a moment; it will not be long before we shall one and all have been laid to rest”. What a gloomy thought to carry around!

I came across an article on Wired magazine (16.01) titled The Software That Will Take Digital F/X to the Next Level of Awesome, relaying how Jos Stam, a computer scientist specializing in 3-D graphics who loves complex problems, view “reality [as] a binary riddle to be cracked, a series of fleeting images best appreciated after they’ve been rendered into 1s and 0s”. He has already devised an algorithm that models digital smoke with astounding realism (used in Lord of the Rings and War of the Worlds) and is currently working on daunting problems involving the interactions of objects and forces, which if successful would be “the holy grail of computer animation”. He wants “software that can play God with pixels”.

The article certainly affirms my belief that nature is innately governed by mathematics, as there seems to be mathematics and numbers in every aspects of the world, think golden ratio which is embedded in arts and nature. I am ceaselessly fascinated by the fact that nature can be accurately modeled by the complex dynamics of mathematics, attempting for example to mimic how elements interact in the real world at a fundamental level such as smoke with wind or solid objects with fabrics.

Paul Dirac, a Nobel Laureate in Physics in 1933, said that “one could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe. Our feeble attempts at mathematics enable us to understand a bit of the universe, and as we proceed to develop higher and higher mathematics we can hope to understand the universe better”.

We may wonder, for example, why all the phenomena encompassed by electromagnetism, from the behavior of electrons to the nature of light, can be explained by a set of four differential equations known as Maxwell’s equations. Equally puzzling is the fact that some geometrical curves like the ellipse, invented/discovered by the Greek mathematician Menaechmus around 350 BC, were found 2,000 years later to describe the orbits of planets around the Sun. Similarly, group theory proved to be essential in the understanding of both the organization of elementary (subatomic) particles, and the structure of solids. What is it that makes mathematics fit the observable universe like a glove?

- Mario Livio, author of The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi