Copyright ©2021, Reginald Brooks, Brooks Design. All rights reserved.
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"The MPS Project" installation at Building Five (Bldg5) is coming and you are invited! OPENING RECEPTION: July 7, 2021 4-7 PM.
“The MPS Project”
(The Mersenne Prime Project).
Theme: Bringing the invisible into a visible, immersing experience.
Challenge: I have some actual “new” mathematics — geometry, really — that reveals and solves an ages old algebraic mystery first laid out by Euclid and later proved and elaborated on by Euler (a.k.a. the “Euclid-Euler Theorem”). The geometric solution is to be revealed and experienced. The challenge will be to engage the viewer.
Location
: Building Five (Bldg 5) 2516 NW 29th Ave, Portland, OR 97210.BUILDING FIVE PROVIDES ART SPACE FOR SITE-SPECIFIC INSTALLATION, PERFORMANCE, INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATIVE WORKS, FILM AND COMMUNITY EXHIBITION.
Collaboration
: North Pole Studio 2516 NW 29th Ave, Portland, OR 97210.I have invited the artists of the new, fabulous North Pole Studio to collaborate in the project in a special way. The notion is to engage the artists to view, watch, question, involve, and most especially to react and respond in their own creative way to realize some work that they might like to display around the installation. The actual grid panels of my installation will be offered for sale in a Silent Auction, with most of the proceeds donated to North Pole Studios. Please feel free to join in. (Silent Auction)
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Acknowledgements
:Portland is absolutely privileged to have creatives who look out for and encourage other creatives. Bldg5 is a huge, completely transformed non-profit creative space designed to bring, to unleash, and to present that vision. A very special thanks to the Originator, Ken Unkeles! and Creative Director, Dana Lynn Louis; Program Manager, Ella Marra-Ketelaar; and a very special thanks and creative nod to Demetri Pavlavtos for Light Design and Technical Support.
For my part, I am very excited to be included and hope to offer something that will excite you as well. Details are below.
Please come for this and many other installations that will be coming to Bldg5. It promises to be something extraordinary!
I could not have realized this project without the generous donations of recycled paper grocery bags that so many offered up. Thanks to: Mary and Ken Unkeles, Leila Salmon, Jo Newhouse, Patty Reksten and Jim Dopp, Ramona Ruhr, Mimi Newhouse, Kitty Anna Heinrich, Peggy Marten, Kim Osman, Jacki McMahon, Sue McConnell, Lachi and Mark Slick, Maggie Daane, Steve and Michele Hunter. And especially to my greatest supporter: Molly Brooks!
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Here's The STORY:
Two dots (numbers, really), one ODD one EVEN, walk into a bar.
The bartender says, “Haven’t I seen you two before?”
“Not likely,” says the ODD dot as he/she plops on a stool, “there are only 51 of us known in the entire Universe — and that makes us kind of special!”
To which the bartender snidely replies to the other dot, “Special? So what makes you two so special?”
“He/she is an ODD Prime number, while I am simply an EVEN,” smirked the EVEN number. “And, we are always together as pairs. Like ODD said, there are currently only 51 pairs: ODD PRIME—EVEN Perfect Number and we like it that way!”
Now grimacing with disbelief, the bartender barks out, “A Perfect Number! Alright, what makes you such a damn Perfect Number — and though you say you are EVEN I am pretty sure you both are odd?”
“Well, since you asked, EVEN Perfect Number replied, “The sum of my factors — not counting myself — equals myself, a Perfect Number! And there are only 51 known Perfect Numbers! I’d say that is pretty special! For example: take the PN 6 = 1+2+3!”
Looking askance at the ODD PRIME, the bartender then leans over and asks, “And you?”
“Hey, you might get more than you bargained for! But here goes. Not only am I a PRIME number and all PRIMES — except 2 — are ODD, I am a very special type of PRIME number called a Mersenne Prime. Technically, that is Mp=2ᵖ -1, where p=PRIME. For you earthlings, that translates to a PRIME that is an exponential power of 2, subtract 1. For example, let p = 2, then Mp = 2² -1 = 4 - 1 = 3 and 3 is a Mersenne Prime. And , of course, you have met my partner, Perfect Number(PN) 6. We are a pair!”
“Cool! So what can I get you?” the bartender grins. It is, after all, nice to start your day with a little elevated mathematics!
“Well, what we really want is to be seen!” said the ODD. “Though we have always been here, at least since the Big Bang, for the last 2000+ years we have only been known as dots — numbers, really — but never seen. We want our land! We want our AREA!”
“Whoa, fella!” exclaims the bartender, “are you talking about going from algebra to geometry? What do you want me to do?”
To which in unison both the ODD and EVEN pair respond, “Connect the dots! Makes some lines”
“Hear me out,” says the ODD. “Here is how you can see us, and, how we are related. You see, my little EVEN PN is really more like one of my children! Yeah, I know, it looks bad, but that is not how it is. You have never before had the opportunity to see what our relationship is and how it naturally forms from the geometry.”
“If you run my dots out to a line, or side, and now square it, you get an actual geometric shape, a SQUARE Since it is made from my Mersenne Prime (Mp), it is called a Mersenne Prime Square (MPS). Now think of it as the TOP layer.”
“That MPS can be divided into 2 RECTANGLES. Best seen on the MIDDLE layer. The EVEN Perfect Number is one of those RECTANGLES, the other is an ODD RECTANGLE.”
“So right from the start, one can ‘see’ that the PN is actually a child AREA of its parent MPS! This occurs in all 51 of the ODD PRIME — EVEN Perfect Number pair sets!”
“In the BOTTOM layer below, the 2 RECTANGLES within the MPS can each be subdivided in to a Perfect Square and a common, remaining RECTANGLE — grandchildren of the MPS!’
“From the MPS we have 2 generational subdivisions giving rise to a total of 6 geometric AREAS, or 7 total AREAS when the MPS AREA is included! And you can ‘see’ every one of them! Not only that, but if you know the number value of the shortest side, you can calculate and draw out the geometry all the way back up to the MPS!”
“So, I’ll have what she/he is having! Thank you, thank you —- thank you very much!”
“Whew!” exclaimed the bartender with a bit of relief, “I think I might have just created a new drink! We’ll call it the ‘MPS’ for Mersenne Prime Square. Take the bottle of Mersenne Primes and pour it out on to a stack of sieves. It will first form an AREA, then filter down to smaller AREAS that thereafter filter down to even smaller AREAS. Pour the AREAS back into a tall glass, layer by layer. Enjoy!”
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Later on after the bar had closed, he sat down to enjoy a nightcap with his new concoction. He couldn’t help but to reflect on all that math he had sucked up that day. Wiping his brow, he threw the bar towel back over his shoulder, took another big draw, and zoned out. Didn’t it seem like there was this constant and never-ending exchange between the EVENS and the ODDS? First the ODDS are ahead, but then the EVENS splurge. Yes, every EVEN is composed of two ODD PRIMES (Goldbach Conjecture, as he recalled!). But the mix changes with different arithmetics. He drew out a little chart. Isn’t math beautiful he thought? And it’s just like people!
http://www.brooksdesign-ps.net/Reginald_Brooks/Code/Html/MSST/TPISC/TPISC_V/MPS.html
When he/she got home that night he/she kissed her/his spouse who she/he missed each and every day. Yeah, she/he thought, work is work, but these two little dots — areas, really — made him/her think about things differently. Maybe they were on to something. It wasn’t that he/she didn’t like his/her job, he/she really did, especially the people! The characters! But the daily onslaught of — call it slant, ax to grind, bigotry, misogamy this, -phobic that — old-fashioned, never ending prejudice was getting tiresome. Differences are the joy!
“Honey,” she/he cried out, “get your ODD or EVEN butt to bed!”
“Be right in! Just got this little family tree chart to fill in.”
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Counting is as old as your fingers (and toes). So is drawing. What’s the difference?
Less than you might think.
The arithmetic of simple counting — adding,subtracting, including the efficiency upgrades of multiplying,dividing — is basic to most all human activity. Much the same for all life forms. How so?
Every biological process is contingent on quantity. Too much or the lack of pushes evolution. We are but an expression of the universalness of quantity.
So how does counting relate to drawing or painting or any other art form, or any form of expression for that matter? What line, how many lines, how thick are the lines, what tone or color lies within, how much, how intense, what are the proportions, how does the weight of one side balance with the other,… There’s no getting away from it. We all use math everyday and in thousands of ways.
So why study and express your art through pure math — you know simple natural whole numbers?
Because they reveal anything and everything about you, yourself, your family, your group or tribe, your Universe. Yes, indeed, you are but a speck of dust in the cosmos of billions and billions of stars, but you still count!
I invite you to come count with me, even if it is just for a little quantity of time!
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REFERENCES
Wikipedia: Mersenne Prime
Wikipedia: Perfect number
Wikipedia: Euclid-Euler theorem
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White Paper: Mersenne Prime Squares
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NEXT: The Geometry of the Mersenne Prime-Perfect Number Relationship
LINKS:
Mersenne Prime Squares (Part I) the Introductory white paper.
Mersenne Prime Squares (Part II) 3 Simple Intros.
Mersenne Prime Squares (Part III) the Advanced white paper.
The MPS Project The Mersenne Prime Squares Project.
Building Five (Bldg5).
North Pole Studio North Pole Studio.
