Maths and earrings

I love this DIY set of earrings from the brilliantly titled Evil Mad Scientist (really? How many underground volcano lairs do you have?!)

Is this getting repetitive?

What’s great about these is that there are very detailed instructions so you too can make them! They are formed with Fimo which I used to have as a kid and could never turn into anything as beautiful as this. I remember I once made a model fireplace. I guess it was cold in old London.

The reason I love these so much is that they combine two great passions – earrings (obviously) and science. I love numbers, physics and astronomy. Anything that asks what are we doing here and how did we get here.

And in all of science, my favourite shape is the triangle. These little gems are the Sierpinski Triangle, which I’m not too proud to admit I had to google. It’s a simple fractal, easily formed, endlessly replicating. A bit like the common cold. A fractal, as I’m sure you know, is a geometric  shape that looks the same up-close or  far-away; you can zoom in endlessly to the same glorious shape. It’s an incredibly powerful mathematical insight that can be found in everything from the pattern of coast-lines to the flowers of a broccoli.

Anyway, this particular form is named after Wacław Franciszek Sierpiński which is hardly a name that trips off the tongue. He’s famous enough to have made it onto a coin and made was a code-breaker, mathematician and general smart-guy.

I don't think he ever wore an earring

So there you have it; earrings you can create yourself and a quick detour into some mathematical theory. Who says earrings can’t be serious?!

Behold the ears

Evidence that wearing earrings is an ancient and honorable pursuit can be found as far back as the Bible, which, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is a stellar piece of fantasy in the same league as Harry Potter or Hobbits, and as a guide to morality to be taken as seriously as either of them.

Despite its shortcomings, it has some interesting historical anecdotes. Most noticeably this – if things had been just a little different, we could all be worshiping a giant earring!

¹And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.²And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.

³And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.

⁴And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

Exodus 32:1-4 (KJV)

So there you have it ladies and gentleman; earrings maketh the good god. If only Moses had stayed up the mountain…

I wonder what it tastes like in a bun?

Images: Nicola Poussin’s The Adoration of the Golden Calf

What I love most about this story, and one of the reasons I am so unprepared to tolerate any of this religious nonsense, is the fact that these people had all personally witnessed the presence and the intervention of their god (this is after the plagues, the escape from Eygpt, the wandering in the desert remember) and yet despite this they STILL don’t believe!

As soon as Moses buggers off they decide to cast off their god and find a new one (and what better than a god made out of earrings!). If they have so little faith, well, thanks very much I’m going to stick to the scientific method.