Isosceles Interference Pattern (two versions)

Interference Spider with Two Eyes Showing (from 2013)

Every now and then, I find something I created some years ago, but never blogged here. This is another such piece, which I made in 2013 (using Geometer’s Sketchpad and MS-Paint), but did not name until today.

Euclid’s Spiders

Posted on 19 February 2015 by RobertLovesPi

The image of two black spiders above is created by interference, and is an example of an interference pattern. The figures which are interfering are four points (and the rays which go with them), two close together on the right, and two close together on the left, but with the two pairs in different orientations. Each point has 240 rays emanating from it, and the rays are equidistant (in terms of angle measure), making each of these rays one euclid (1.5º) apart from its nearest neighbors.

Truncated Cube Decorated with Waves

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Truncated Cube Decorated with Waves

On the octagonal faces, the waves shown in blue, red, and purple are sine waves of varying wavelength and amplitude. The other three waves were each formed by combining two of these component waves by simple addition — wave interference, in other words. All three possible combinations of two component waves are included.

I needed three different types of software to create this. First, Geometer’s Sketchpad was used to create the multiple-wave image itself. Next, with MS-Paint, I cropped the image and converted it into a usable format. Finally, Stella 4d was used to place the image on the large faces of this truncated cube, and create this rotating .gif file.

Of these three programs, Stella 4d is easily my favorite, and it also happens to be written by a friend of mine. Trial version / purchase information for this program may be found at http://www.software3d.com/stella.php.