We might as well close out the week on a high note, so here’s tonight’s ornament. Actually, there are two of them:
Obviously, this is another reference to astronomy– it’s little guys looking through telescopes, after all. The larger of the two is even gazing upon a glassy celestial sphere, perhaps on the verge of discovering heliocentrism.
Their piratical outfits are, of course, something for the Pastafarians among us. We try to be inclusive, here in Chateau Steelypips.
You’re wrong. The scientific object is, of course, the sphere. It represents all of mathematics!
Or, at least:
calculus of variations (it minimizes area at fixed volume)
differential topology (the only simply connected compact surface)
differential geometry (the only compact surface with a metric of constant positive curvature)
linear algebra (it reminds one of the classification of positive definite bilinear forms)
complex algebraic geometry (that’s the complex projective line hanging from your tree!)
number theory (assume the sphere has integer radius R, and is centered at the origin. How many points with integer coordinates does it contain?)
The funny guys are clearly mathematicians looking at it very, very carefully 🙂
I had no idea that Napoleon was a pastafarian!