Leonardo’s Temple

(A Mathe-magical Whirligig Axis of Life – From Movie Stars to Spiraling Galaxies)

You could drive by and never notice the essence of this plot of land. There was a tiny shack in the left rear corner of the lot.  It was small with a chimney billowing light gray smoke. The house had a window and a door facing the front and a similar window facing the sides. From those windows the entire field of green and yellow and white was visible. You would miss it because unless you stopped and looked at the grandeur of the entirety, it was a piecemeal disaster. The yellow and white were wild flowers growing as nature would tend to them, interspersed with tall grass. The shack was vintage with wooden rafters weathered and curved straining at the nails that held them in place. The windowpanes were spotless however. A small mound to the right of the house was residence to a swarm of ants that kept their nightly vigil trekking food back and forth snaking tiny paths along the side. There were straight paths cut through this landscape perpendicular to each other. Each subdivision of the tract had a different color based on what grew there. The varnish of asymmetry from near grew dull as the colors of symmetry brightened from afar. The chaos was carefully hidden in the perfection of the whole. A Mandelbrot Fractal!

This was an amazing tract of land. No doubt tended to by man, as the first light glimmered above the high terrain back-drop of the hill. The tops of the fir trees lit up with the golden hue. The elongated shadows traced across the landscape over the wild flowers, the bushes and the one-lane road that bore limit to this nature’s feast.

“What do you want?” The gruff voice from behind the screen-door was startling.

“Your property is so beautiful, I had to mention it.”

“Eh!” he grunted, his face framed by the half-screened door. He was old maybe in his seventies. Thin and tall with long gray hair that came down to his shoulders and a moustache and beard that matched and merged to comport his visage.

“What do you want?” He said again.

“Nothing.”

“You’re not selling anything?”

“No.”

“Oh!” He seemed taken aback. The screen door opened with a slight hesitation, “You want to see the field?”

“I’d love to.”

He came out in his pale brown dungarees. He walked around the field carefully winding his way via the partitions crafted to separate smaller tracts from others based on what was being grown. He showed me a beautiful patch of strawberries, another of pineapples. There was a larger patch of sunflowers. In the corner behind his house was a rectangular piece of land with bare earth and on it was an aviary. The bees calmly buzzed in their world of honey entering and exiting as they hunted for nectar. There was even a small patch of cauliflower with purple colored leaves in full blossom.

“Your paradise?”

“Yup.”

“I have never seen anything like this.”

“You seem like a man who likes nature. What do you do?”

“Medicine.”

“Oh!” he said with a mild surprise,  “A doctor?”

“Yes.”

“A man of science. Good. Of the ten or so people who have stopped by all have been scientists of one sort or another. Never a doctor has knocked on the door. Come on in. Like some Butternut squash soup? I just made it.”

“Smells delicious.” And it was, heavenly.

The house was a two-room bungalow with a bathroom. The gathering room as he called it was sparsely furnished lending to limited societal interaction. A lone straight back wooden chair and a loveseat. There was a table next to the far end with a stool next to it, presumably for eating. A small stove with a covered pot on the burner heating up the smell of soup that permeated the enclave and an equal size empty sink completed the kitchen. But what caught the eye were the walls. There were photographs of various plants in blossom. Beautiful yellows, reds, violets, blue and magenta colors stared down. There were flowers and bushes and even trees in various shades of blossom.

“My photos. I develop them in the back room.”

“Wow. These are beautiful.”

“Anything catch your eye.”

“Everything.”

“Let me share with you an open secret. No one really knows and maybe no one cares to know. This piece of property is subdivided according to the Golden Ratio. You know what that is?”

“Yes a little. It is based on the Fibonacci numbers.”

“Precisely. You see nature has the Golden Ratio in most plants. The Fibonacci numbers have a sequence of 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55 and so on. Each number is the addition of the previous two. The Golden Ratio is the division between any two sequential numbers. 55 divided by 34 gives you 1.618. Or a line AB with a point C within it and the ratio of the length of the line CB to AC is similar to the ratio of AC to AB. Mathematically it is written as: (1+Square root of 5) /2 = 1.618

“So what I did was to divide my property in the Golden Spiral based on the Ratio. Each tract of land gets progressively bigger and each subdivision grows different vegetable, fruit or flower. Like the nautilus.” His moustache stretched with the smile beneath it. He was pleased with himself.

The Nautilus and the Golden Ratio

The Sea Shell

“Incidentally all the fruits and flowers that grow also have the principle of the Golden Ratio. For example you noted there were the strawberries, cabbage, the sunflowers etc. Their growth pattern is nature’s design of beauty and symmetry, example the bees, their reproduction is based on the Fibonacci numbers. The male bee reproduces without the female while the female needs the male and the breeding results in the Numbers. Fibonacci actually came up with the Numbers by basing it on the rabbits growth rate.”

The Reproduction of Bees.

“I am impressed. What made you do this?”

“I am a mathematician. I worked in the Los Alamos lab in New Mexico and retired a few years ago.”

“All these were grown on this property?”

“Of course, by rotation. Keeps me fed and independent.”

In the middle of the photographs was a lone photo of a woman. It was black and white, faded by age but held in reverence by its position.

“That is my wife. She passed away a few years ago. Since you are a doctor this might interest you too. I found out that each heartbeat has the Golden Ratio in it. The distance between the T wave and the QRS complex is Ratio based. Also the arm and the hand lengths are based on the Fibonacci Numbers and the Golden Ratio. True!” He pulled out some charts to elucidate his point.

“I didn’t know that.”

Electrocardiogram (EKG)

“The ratio of the systolic and diastolic blood pressure falls close to 1.61 and where the ratio is disturbed such that it is 1.7 or 1.5 the life is shortened by disease as happened with my wife.” He grew wistful as the past flooded his mind. The silence was short and abruptly abandoned as if awakened from sleep. He said, “Great works of architecture such as the Parthenon in Greece and the Notre Dam Cathedral were based on the Ratio, as were the Pyramids in Egypt, as well as great works of art like DaVinci's Mona Lisa.”

The Parthenon

Mona Lisa

“Fascinating.”

“To go from the known limits to the limitless space, even the spiral galaxies observe the Ratio. As we peer down from space the hurricanes observe similar laws even down to the waves that crash on the shores observe the 1,1,2,3,5,8 numbers when viewed from their side profile. It is the Golden thread that weaves the fabric of the universe and our lives.

A Hurricane and the M51 Galaxy

“The axioms of mathematics have deciphered some of the nature’s codes. We have a lot more to learn but use them for our benefit is what separated us from animals. Even in music, Mozart’s 5^th Symphony is based on the Ratio. It is indeed considered one of the Masterpieces along with Beethoven’s Fifth, also based on the Ratio.”

Mozart's 5th First 9 Notes

The Piano's Musical Octave (2,3,5,8)

“Any other areas of anatomy or physiology that this Ratio appears?”

The Human Hand and the Golden Ratio.

“Now I got your curiosity tweaked. Yes. The branching of the lung tissue and even the neuronal growth and interconnection in the brain seem to have some relationship although that is your field of endeavor. But what is most interesting is that the DNA itself is based on the ratio. The cycle length of the DNA is 34 angstroms and the width is 21 Angstroms. Now here is the kicker, there are 21 microtubules that separate a dividing cell and each microtubule has 5 and 8 rows of right and left moiety. 

The cell dividing Microtubule.

In 1990 Jean Claude Perez while working for IBM discovered a DNA supracode which he termed as “Resonances” controlling the self-organization of the nucleotides Thiamine, Cytosine, Adenine and Guanine (T,C,A,G), which make up the steps in the double helix ladder of DNA.  

The DNA Supracode.

He discovered if you consider 144 contiguous nucleotides it results from 55 T bases and 89 C A G bases, all Fibonacci numbers.

The DNA and the Golden Ratio.

“ A.L. Goldberger from University of California in 1984 reviewed the irregular branching of the human and animal bronchial tree of the lung and found the Fibonacci scaling there too. It appears that Nature in her simplicity and expediency employs the Ratio to create elegance. Just as Leonardo DaVinci did with Mona Lisa and the most beautiful people defined by the present day media  (Audrey Hepburn, George Clooney, the latter data was published in December13 2009 article in the British Medical Journal by Hanno Ulmer) 

Audrey Hepburn

George Clooney

have faces that show the Ratio between the mouth, the nose and the eyes all bear the beauty of symmetry and the rules of the Ratio. As a mathematician, I don’t know whether the Ratio was waiting to be found or we created it to fit our world. However given the widespread dispersion of it in the universe, I call this Ratio the Fingerprint of God.”

Leonardo of Pisa (Fibonacci)

It is easy to find beauty when one has an open mind. Nature throws colors and architectures of grand beauty waiting for us for our wide-eyed enrapture. But even more we have the tools established by a brilliant mind that of Leonardo Pisano (aka Fibonacci) to explore our world and employ Nature’s own formulae to create a haven. Perfection exists not in the toil but the knowledge. Beauty exists in perfection.

The Three Magic Words

She looked at him, her eyes wide with desire, the pupils in their staccato rage of focusing from side to side upon every feature of his face, but mostly each eye. He held her hands in both his and knew there was something he wanted to say to her but did not know how she would respond. It was late night and the minute hand of the clock tower nearby inched slowly towards the midnight hour. She knew she had to leave but she wanted to stay and hear him say the words she most wanted to hear. Their fingers interlocked in silence, palms sweaty and the first vapor trail of the warm breadth visible in the cold air. She shivered and he drew her closer but still no words. She had to go. She left.

“So what happened? She left?”

“Yes.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes.” He said. This was a wistful word for a lost moment. He was now in the eightieth year of his life. He still sat with a straight back. His chin shaven jutted out with authority that he was used to. He was a retired three-star general in the army. His face weathered and permanently tanned from the limitless sun exposure. It was chiseled in straight angles and hard contours of determination and authority. The brown eyes deep set under a heavy brow and sloping forehead that ended in a crop of thin marine style haircut. His movements in the chair brought him discomfort and it reflected on the deepening furrow around his eyes. Here was a man who could take discomfort, yet this intense pain affected his steely stare.

“What is in this injection?”

“It is called Strontium.”

“An isotope of Strontium?”

“As a matter of fact it is Strontium90.”

“Hell that is a nuke!”

“It has medicinal qualities of alleviating pain from bone cancer.”

“So tell me how?”

“It emits some beta energy which destroys the cancer cells and that reduces the pressure on the periosteum lining of the bones that reduces pain.”

“Strontium90. Huh, never knew that I would be lining my interior with the stuff that Johan Gadolin discovered centuries ago.”

                                                   Johan Gadolin

“Actually it works relatively quickly and reduces discomfort markedly in a majority of patients.”

“Where does this Strontium come from?”

“It is delivered to us directly from a lab.”

“Well son, let me tell you about Strontium90.” He shifted slowly in his chair and the words started flowing. He wore his professorial hat now, not the commanding general's laced with golden braids. His voice had a Goldilocks deliberation to it. Not to slow to embarrass nor too quick to lose interest. It was just right in theme and tenor.

“You see, we all have a little bit of Strontium in us. Strontium is a byproduct of Uranium 235 after it fissions. U235 as you know is the enriched version of U238 the more stable isotope. U235 has a half-life of 700,000,000 years. U238 however has a half-life of 4 billion years. The fissile component of fast energy in U235 when enriched to 80-100%% grade leads to “weapons/bomb grade” status. In Nuclear reactors the enrichment is up to 40%.

“As the U235 decays and emits beta energy it collides with another beta particle and fission occurs. If this continues past a critical point called critical mass, it leads to a chain reaction and we have a pure Uranium 235 Hiroshima

 and a Plutonium 239 Nagasaki. “Fat Man” bomb.

 The former is easier to control for instance it requires about 33 pounds of U235, 2 Neutron release and 81 generations of fissions to create, what 13 pounds of P 239 with 3 Neutrons and 51 generation of chain reaction would yield in equivalence. 

The latter (P239) is a byproduct of a nuclear reactor – easier to obtain but difficult to control, with a half-life of 24,000 years. 

While only 2% of the Hiroshima bomb underwent the fission most was lost due to pre-detonation or non-fission. In the Nagasaki bomb the external ring of hexagonal density pressure sensors which encased the P239 device were designed to simultaneously explode and “push” the Neutron flow within thus causing the chain reaction. 

In the nuclear reactor the chain reaction is contained and sustained by the 60% U238 that absorbs the energy and also by using heavy water, Carbon, Lithium and Molybdenum moderators.

“In the Reactor, U235 emits its energy particle and the 8% byproduct is Strontium90 with a half life of 65 days. Strontium90 has a fission energy yield of about 6%. It is also the isotope du jour for the Russian Nuclear Reactors. The decay and release of the fast gamma particle leads to a byproduct of Yttrium90, which has a half-life of 64 hours. Yttrium90 is not a energy yielder as Strontium nor Uranium. A Nuclear reactor is a controlled sustained sets of explosion with a predetermined yield of energy that heats up the water converting it into steam that drives the turbines that creates electricity that rides the power lines and drives your daily home needs.” 

“How do you know all this?”

“I was in Nuclear Physics field when I decided that serving the country in the army was a better use of my life, knowing what I knew to protect and defend our country.”

“Noble.”

He fell silent. His left eye arched in contemplation for a fleeting moment and then all muscles relaxed as past decisions met with approval.

“I didn’t know we have Strontium90 in us?”

“There is a reason behind that. The US and Russia exploded Nuclear warheads in the beginning. The explosion released Megatons of energy. Some of the byproducts blew through the tropopause of the atmosphere and circulate around the earth as micro-satellite particles eventually becoming the nuclei for raindrops. These then fall on the earth and are absorbed by the plants. Animals eat the plants and man eats both plants and animals. Strontium90 being extremely mobile gets into the underground water supply too and there you have it. The Northern Hemisphere soil has more of it than the Southern Hemisphere.

“For a Jar-head to know all this, troubles your grafted image but then looks can be deceiving, remember I was a nuclear physicist first.”

“Wow. I had no idea. I do know that Strontium salts help with osteoporosis and are incorporated in the bones to increase bone density and it may be the same affinity…”

“So tell me what does Strontium90 do inside the body?” He asked.

“Oh that I can help with. You see Strontium competes with calcium in the bone and gets embedded in the bone. There is a competition between the two. 70-80% of the Strontium90 is eliminated by the body in urine and feces, while 1% is affixed to the bones.”

“So doesn’t that cause problems?”

“We think there is an extremely low risk of lymphomas, leukemias and bone marrow diseases from that. There is some thought that a disorder like Myelodysplastic Syndrome now on the rise may be in part a consequence of that.”

“So you are going to cause cancer within my cancer?”

“Not really. The time delay between exposure and causation is several years.”

“How do you know?”

“The dosage is small. Incidentally the byproduct Yttrium90 is being used in the treatment of Malignant Lymphomas that is a disease of the lymphocytes and lymph nodes, by hybridizing it with a mouse monoclonal antibody it becomes branded as Zevlin and another called Bexxar with good results. 

In fact there are new studies where doctors at MD Anderson in Houston Texas have used lipid pellets filled with Yttrium90 successfully to destroy cancer in the liver by arterial embolization.”

Hepatic Angiogram

Direct Delivery of Strontium90 into the Hepatic Artery

Liver tumor prior to therapy

Liver tumor after Yttrium 90 infusion

Photomicrograph of Liver tissue with encapsulated Yttrium90

“What about side effects?”

“For the Embolism method there is an 11% risk of stomach bleeding due to erosion of the lining which is preventable.”

Stomach ulceration due to therapy

“That is encouraging, so the side effects are dose-dependent?”

“Sort of.”

“Not known, Huh?”

“Unfortunately that is true.”

“Well, I don’t have that long. What the hell.”

“You will feel better.”

“I hope you are right.”

Four weeks later he was walking without pain. He stood straight with one arm on the windowsill. The light of the day cast a shadow on his face, which had softened furrows. The relief was measurable and now a smile emerged from his thin lips. “It worked. Life is worth living again.”

“I am glad.”

“You know when you said that Strontium competes with the Calcium, it made me think and investigate a little.”

“What did you learn?” His voice that of a three-star general and professor all in one.

“Lately there are studies showing the benefits of Vitamin D and Calcium against Breast cancer and Colon cancer. Interestingly enough the ingested foods we eat contain Strontium90 from the soil. A fairly large amount of the stomach and intestine lining is affected by the Strontium90 as it passes through and it is also present in breast milk up to 4ppm vs. the whole body content being 0.5ppm. This gives an interesting premise that Calcium/Vitamin D use competes with Strontium90 thus forcing more Strontium90 excretion, hence the reduction in the cancer occurrences and more protection from malignancy as the new studies are advocating.”

“You should publish that.” He rammed his right fist into the left palm.

“It is only a theory. One would have to get proof.”

“So get it.” He said it with conviction. There was no arguing the difficulty with him. Hard work and dedication were his life.

“Right.”

“I wanted to thank you for the help. Your treatment worked wonders for me.”

“I am glad. But I did have a question that has been bothering me.”

“What is it?”

“What happened to the girl?”

“I married her 10 years later. Dogged pursuit of a love, what I thought was unrequited was requited with equal measure from her side. We met again after college and after finishing my tenure as a nuclear physicist. She followed my life as I did hers and then one day I got the courage to ask her out and said the three magic words.”

“Bold eh?”

“I am a jar-head, what do you expect? You think I was going to let her go the second time. Never!”

Isn’t it strange? Sometimes the lack of expression of simple words can create huge divides that remain until the bridge is built to pass over the crevice with those same words.

Isn’t discovery weird? Sometimes a poison can act as ointment to heal a wound it might have caused.

Isn’t complexity just a state of mind rather then a few simple things stitched together?

Life is simply elemental!

Expression

Language is the facile congress of intuitive thought. It is an expression of intent and emotion through sound modulation. Humans evolved into a society of doers through language. It is language that made the San Francisco Bridge,

 the Sistine Chapel,

Notre Dame cathedral,

the Leaning tower of Pisa

and all the wonderful architectural triumphs around the world.
It is also language that created the Mona Lisa,

Irises

or Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galileo.

It is language again that has created the digital world we occupy through succession of 1s and 0s. And it is also language that gave us the Space Shuttle,

the Concorde

and the Joint Strike Fighter.

Language is at the heart of all that is accomplished and all that remains. All the music from Mozart to Beethoven to Stravinsky and Eminem there lies the common thread of language –an expression of hope, love, anger, fear, happiness and despondency It is through these communication of thought and expression of ideas that new worlds are born. We communicate via language, whether in written form, Braille, or sign language, our inner selves. Language thus creates a medium of expression. It tells others about our thoughts and us. It tells us through those pulses of vibrating air what the world is. Language is the determination of the nature of meaning.

Intent is the cloaked specter residing under the sounds of expression, yet through language even the hidden intent of our inner thoughts can be exposed. No matter how dark the veil, intent always oozes through in words and inflections. It is the emotions riding on the words that reflect feelings. We feel, therefore we express. Opinions are our release of inner thought and the cadence of the expression reflects the emotive mood. The slow undulating viscous smooth lilt of words of love, versus the harsh high-pitched staccato with the teeth chopping words as they fall out over the twisted tongue can only mean anger.

The written language has more thought prevailed upon it. It is disciplined and succinct to the projection of an idea. It also is an infant in the scheme of things, since the written word is youger by thousands of years to the spoken expression.

                                            Cuneiform the first known written language

How we communicate is how we think. How we think is riddled with our fears, happiness, and experiential references. Thus many a father has told his son to watch over the words before speaking, once spoken however these words enslave us.

                                          Werniecki and the Broca's Areas of the brain

2.4 million years ago the brain was half that of its present size. It achieved the current size around 1 million years ago. The Broca’s and Werniecke Areas in the brain seem to have evolved around 250,000 years ago yet language in all its glory did not occur till 40,000 years ago. The sudden adaptation from animalistic behavior to hunter-gatherer to the modern pin striped suited man with a Mohawk hair-do is what Chomsky proposed. No slow regulated evolution just boom there it is.

                                  Language is the determination of the nature of things

Current references to “mirror neurons,” the brain cells imitator extraordinaire are thought to allow learning through imitation. Ever seen a three month-old baby, sure you have, how she tries to express by imitating the adults till she is able to with time and experience. Akin to her arm and leg movements, the sounds that emanate from the infant are free staccato utterances, unformed and unguided until more control of the mouth, tongue and the vocal cords has occurred. Then one day “Mamma” rings out to the delight of her mother and all is well with the world.

“I can’t imagine someone saying that garbage!” He said with some anger and resolve. Something that was said had reverberated in him the wrong way, disassembling his structure of philosophy and nature.

“Who and what are you talking about?”

“That jerk. He is a quack at best. Doesn’t know a thing about anything and makes himself out to be an expert. That damned Joe.” Joe was the new fellow in the medical program. He was all bluster and blister. Spoke out when not spoken with, opined when no one asked and expressed when least desired. He was a one-man band of satire, uncouth and discourtesy.

“What happened?”

“I sent him a young woman for an opinion and he laid out the worst case scenario. Took the percentages and rolled them over to destroy any little hope she had. Left her crying in the room and then had the nerve to say, “Make the necessary adjustments in your life,” to her. He is the devil himself.”

“He can be a little opinionated at times.”

“Opinionated is not the word for him. It took me an hour to remove fear in her and even then the doubt he cast remained.”

“Maybe you should talk to him.”

“I do that about once a week. The tunnel between his ears is pretty wide. Everything flows through.” He said with his right hand sailing from left to right. “It would be one thing if he could empathize with the patients. I bet his ‘mirror neurons’ are dysfunctional.”

“That would make him…”

“Autistic. No. Just an imbecile with the devil’s tongue.” His exasperation was obvious. Stress rode the color on his face and sweat beads of anger formed over the temples. “I mean you can express the data with a positive bent. The response to treatment is over 85% in that woman’s case and he decides to ride the 15% barge of despair. 5-year survival after treatment is well over 50 percent and he says one of two women with this disease die in less than 5 years. Is that nuts? Or what? I understand false hope is as bad, but truth can be expressed in better ways than with a glass half-empty all the time. Wham, slap in the face and see you later attitude is not what a fragile mind can take. Take the hope away and you might as well ring the death knell.”

“True.”

“Fighting a disease requires energies and super-human strengths. The fights against despair, frustration, hopelessness and plain depression are all too many, and then to present the worst case scenario is like walking someone to the guillotine.” His hand falls slicing through the air down on the table wham.

‘That is sad.”

“Sad but cruel too. I mean you can say the same thing better and with enough measure to allow the aggrieved understanding to sink in slowly yet with hope. Not only are his words chosen poorly but also his inflections are almost without empathy. There is no ‘me’ in the conversation. It is as if the book reads the words in a monosyllabic tone like the computer text to speech readers of the days past. Now even the computer text reader voices have inflections simulating reality for human comfort. None with that dufus.” He shakes his head disgustedly then gets up to leave.

“Don’t let him get to you.”

“Easier said.” He looks back after taking a few steps, “Empathy is being a human. To lose a fight before it is fought, to lay down your arms before the enemy is sighted or to accept defeat when the drums of battle have yet to be beaten and all because of mistimed, mistuned or misrepresented information is horrible! The decision must lie with the individual once the facts are properly assimilated.” He turned to leave and briefly looked back to say, “Always!”

Tonality, pitch and inflection lie at the heart of communication. The meaning of the word changes with variation of one or all three. Humanity’s gift is the ability to draw from these musical expressions an algorithm for communicating thoughts and feelings for sharing and building, for creating and developing and for softening the blows of nature upon nature’s grandest experiment – us.

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 


Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch; 


If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; 


If all men count with you, but none too much; 


If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - 


Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 


And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son. 

-Rudyard Kipling