¶ Necklace
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Index Entry
Necklace:
“I have a very crude necklace. What is unique about the necklace is its flexibility, so it can be draped over the shoulders. . . . Looking closely to see how and why it can flex, we find that the individual pieces of wood here are not changing their length at all. . . . What is changing are the angles. All the flexing is in the terms of the angular change and not linear. . . In other words an angle is an angle independently of the length of its edges. So these are angular behaviors. I’m going to take several pieces out of the necklace. It’s still very flexible so we take another one out. Still very flexible. Take out another piece. Still very flexible. Now I’ll take out one more piece-- we’re down to four pieces and it’s still very flexible. This we’ll drape over my shoulders with a triangle in front and a triangle in back. Fan calls this a square, but we see this square as completely unstable. I became extremely interested in this when I was young, the fact that the square does not have any structural integrity of its own. It only behaves the way it did because the teacher put it on a rigid blackboard, and it couldn’t change there. Now I’m going to take out one more piece. . and for the first time it will no longer flex.”
¶ Citations
- RBF at SLS Seminar U.Mass, Amherst 22 July '71, p. 17
