Debunking the Bible Code

A lot of people I know (highly educated and technically savvy people, not your typical couch carrots) found The Bible Code convincing. There's enough evidence that the book itself is simply bogus (far too many articles to cite, but try this one for starters).

The real reason the book is not entirely uncompelling is that the original paper on which it is based (published as an appendix to "The Bible Code") is much more scientific and correspondingly difficult to debunk; however, the peer-reviewed mathematical journal which first published "Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis" also published this refutation five years later.

A summary of the whole controversy by one of the authors of the refutation pretty much puts the whole "mystery" to rest. For most of us.

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The Aesthetics of Revulsion

A cornucopia of repulsive visions from the kings of venereal horror: an interview with David Cronenberg and William S. Burroughs in which the author reveals his lifelong fear of possession and the director discusses his fascination with the "aesthetics of revulsion".

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Twenty Years of Prosperity

Wiritten in 1996, "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" by John Perry Barlow comes across quite differently under present circumstances. Given all the pundits spinning the "told you so" story, it's enlightening to look back at what's really been said this past five years. Twenty years of prosperity indeed.

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The Mathematics of Morphogenesis

I found these intriguing drawings by Alan Turing in the Turing Digital Archives. It seems that in addition to being a visionary computer scientist and brilliant cryptologist, Turing also made significant contributions to mathematical biology - in particular the mathematics of morphogenesis.

Although the only paper he published on the subject ("The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis",1952) isn't available online, there's a summary of Turing's work on the development of form by Jonathon Swinton. Turing's ideas on the chemical reaction-diffusion process as the basis for the development of patterns in nature (such as the spots on giraffes and jaguars) inspired reaction-diffusion texture-generation in computer graphics.

Another of Turing's interests was spiral phyllotaxis (in particular, the development of the daisy), which influenced the physically-based modelling of plants and flowers by Dr. P. Prusinkiewicz and others (there are some amazing images in this paper). Also, "Visual Models of Morphogenesis" hosts a nice collection of images and animations related to these topics, complete with explanations and references. It's a graphical feast for artists and geeks alike.

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Concept Maps of Mars

The Center for Mars Exploration web site - in addition to providing tons of details on missions to the Red Planet - uses a concept map interface for navigation. This implementation also makes use of one-to-many links, something the web's needed for some time, IMHO. More information on concept maps and the software used to create the Mars map interface is available from the University of West Florida's Institute for Human and Machine Cognition.

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