#Fibonacci sequence

[alarminglybad]

Five fish, eight fish, thirteen fish, twenty-one fish

[starrmarr]

Math Releases the Insanity Within

[zelpharofficial]

👼 Aziraphale's Golden Spiral

~the real reason why aziraphale is so appealing to the eyes 🤭

[cosmicportal]

Everything is sound.

[emiuli]

Falling into place

[reality-detective]

A visualization of Pi being Irrational 🤔

[jareckiworld]

Pavel Nešleha (1937-2003) — Romulus and Remus [mixed media on paperboard, 1970]

[catfindr]

[robojade]

MINDWAVE REALNESS. rabbit tricks up by 12358%.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Look at this artsy design. I didn't know what the numbers meant, until you told me and I Googled Fibonacci Sequence. I still didn't get what it has to do with the alligator, though, so I Googled that, too. It said, "The Alligator indicator uses three smoothed moving averages, set at five, eight, and 13 periods, which are all Fibonacci numbers." (Still don't get it. I'm totally beclowned when it comes to math.)

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Including their first EP, the time between album releases by the band TOOL has grown longer from 1, to 3, then 5, and most recently 13 years. This number sequence is called "The Linear Medici Sequence" and is significant because it shows how lazy the band has grown.

[bluevelvetbikini]

[headintheselbywall]

invited a math nerd over for dinner we’re having fibognocci

[dzgrizzle]

Cats are very scientific.

[cosmicportal]

Our solar system.

[raleighrador]

Torturing myself with ways Disney changed Star Wars - Violence & Strength part 2

A further follow to this https://www.tumblr.com/raleighrador/774909537693171712/a-final-thought-to-add-here-my-belief-is-that?source=share

If you like the sequels and specifically like Rey, you may want to skip this post. As a character I think she - as might be expected from the face of the sequel trilogy - is the purist distillation of how Disney fundamentally changed the narrative role of strength and violence, and power more generally.

I also think this broadly makes for an uninteresting character that has limited efficacy as part of a story, and is almost purely a marketing/fan service vehicle.

On violence and strength: Rey basically wins every single meaningful fight she gets into. Almost every physical confrontation is an illustration of how badass and competent she is. This is true throughout the trilogy.

In TFA her first confrontation is with Finn, a trained storm trooper raised from childhood to be a soldier. Rey effortlessly disarms him and gets him on the ground. Sure, she has a weapon and he doesn't but still.

Compare this with Luke's first few conflicts - he is knocked out by the Tuskens, he needs Ben to save him in the cantina.

There is the climactic fight with Kylo Ren. First, she "overpowers" Kylo and is able to snatch the lightsaber out of his Force grip, and then she defeats him in a duel. I know Kylo had been shot by Chewie but when I watch that scene I don't see anything that is meant to indicate he is operating at far below his best.

Again, compare this to either Luke or Anakin's first duels (after significantly more training). They both lose, badly, and are dismembered. Sure, Vader and Dooku are perhaps meant to be understood as far more powerful and dangerous than Kylo but the point remains.

Rey actually has limited fights in TLJ - but the throne room is clearly the most meaningful one. Again, pertinent observations: Rey (and Kylo) are able to defeat 8 Praetorian guards (who have the visual and contextual signal of "baddies you should worry about, not regular mooks"). Her and Kylo then again play tug of war with the lightsaber, and are evenly matched to the point that the saber gets ripped in half.

Again - Rey doesn't lose. In fact, we get a long lingering fight scene to show how cool and bass and good at fighting she is. She is tempted by Kylo, tempted by the dark side, and rejects it.

Completely unscathed, it is worth adding.

Again, compare this with Luke (tempted and mutilated by his father), or Anakin who gives in to the dark (on Tattooine and arguably on Geonosis) and is mutilated physically and spiritually in doing so.

Finally we get to TROS.

Rey's first "fight" is with Kylo where she destroys his TIE with a saber, then uses force lightning to destroy a ship (and maybe but turns out not actually kill Chewie).

Her second is the vision/teleport duel with Kylo across the ship and the planet. Again, it is a draw, Rey certainly doesn't lose.

She and Kylo duel again on the wreckage of the DS. Maybe Kylo is distracted but he certainly isn't winning, and Rey then stabs him (which is commonly believed to indicate someone "winning" a sword fight). She then Force heals him and saves his life.

On Exegol her and Ben Solo then murder their way through the Praetorians and Knights of Ren, before directly confronting Palpatine. The jeopardy in the narrative is created by the fact that if Rey kills Palpatine out of anger, she becomes a Sith, but if she doesn't kill him she dies and so does the Resistance. Rey then hears the voices of all the past Jedi - including, just in case we didn't get it, Anakin Skywalker telling her to bring balance to the Force like he did (did he?) - and magically teleports Ben's lightsaber so she can dual wield and redirect the lightning Palpatine is blasting and kill shim with that.

She then dies from the effort (before immediately being brought back to life by Ben).

Again, contrast this with Anakin's fight with Obi-Wan on Mustafar or Luke's confrontation with Vader on DS2. Anakin and Obi-Wan both lose on Mustafar - the mere act of engaging in violence empowers the Dark and ultimately completes the creation of Darth Vader.

Luke only wins by throwing down his saber, by refusing to meet violence with violence.

Lucas had a clear metaphysical logic that is reflected in the use and role of violence.

Violence has a cost. There is no escaping that. Violence is almost always wrong - even if you believe it to be right and approach it dispassionately. There is no just killing, not such that your soul can survive.

Luke and Anakin are - narratively - consistently punished for choosing violence. Every time they try and solve a problem with violence they lose a loved one, a body part, a piece of their soul.

The same is true - to a lesser degree - for Obi-Wan. He defeats Maul but loses Qui-Gon. His decision to follow Dooku results in his and Anakin's injuries and achieves nothing. He is the one who swings a saber through whatever limited remains of Anakin might exist and heralds the final birth of Vader.

Contrast this with the fight on the DS. Obi-Wan knows there is no victory in fighting Vader, but in refusing to fight, in sheathing his sword, he can achieve a power far greater than the Sith can imagine.

TLJ's final scene where Mirage Luke confronts Kylo is actually also consistent with this, and it's why it is in isolation some of my absolute favourite Star Wars.

TLJ is also very confusing while it DOES apply the same logic as Lucas to Luke (try and kill your sleeping nephew = bad, using the Force to distract the First Order while you never actually harm anyone = good) it doesn't to Rey or Kylo.

Disney - by contrast - certainly do not treat violence in the same way. In fact, Disney takes a starkly different view which is almost readable as "might makes right" or maybe more accurately "being right makes you mighty".

Rey is good and pure and therefore she wins all her fights. She is on the side of the Light and so cannot lose. Kylo Ren, by contrast, is Evil and so despite more training and experience he consistently loses. It is only when he fights for the right reasons - killing Snoke and his guards to help Rey, or saving Rey from Palpatine - that he wins.

This is... distinctly weird. How, for example, are we meant to reinterpret the original 6 films or the wider Star Wars universe with this logic? I take it Palpatine was mostly right?

What you might say is actually that violence has no narrative weight. Maybe. That is as much of a change from Lucas as anything else but it also significantly limits the ability to tell a story in the context of the medium of sci fi action movies.

And that is actually the point, I think. There is no meaningful narrative interpretation of violence in the Disney films. The fight scenes serve no real purpose - they do not represent crucibles in which characters develop and transform, nor do they provide any level or moral insight.

They are purely vehicles for a) cool cinematography (and to be clear, the Sequels are consistently BEAUTIFUL and the fights scenes are some of the best) and b) emphasising how awesome the poster girl is and how neat it would be if you bought Lego and action figures and and and.