• 心似双丝网,中有千千结

    2006-06-23

    Tag:艺术

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    http://fractal.blogbus.com/logs/2694814.html

    http://renard.blog.edu.cn/user1/6100/archives/2006/1373212.shtml

    Using Chinese Knots

     

    Chinese knots have a long history and through the centuries people have invented many ingenious ways to use them. You can decorate your clothes with them, for example. Take a look at any old statue and you are likely to find some knots on their sashes. An emperor in Liang Dynasty surely used it this way and we know it from a poem he wrote:

     

    繡帶合歡結,錦衣連理文。

    This emperor must be quite an avid fan of Chinese knots, because in another poem we see again:

    腰中雙綺帶,夢為同心結。

    Why 同心結 (Lover's Knot)? It turns out that very often the Chinese knots carry symbolic meanings as well. You must have heard of the phrase "結髮夫妻". How does that phrase come about? Back in the Tang Dynasty, the new couples hold a special ceremony in their wedding night. They cut a little bit of hair off and knot them together in the Lover's Knot. There is a poem written by a woman that described this very well:

    依既剪雲鬟,

    郎亦分絲髮。

    覓問無人處,

    绾作同心結。


    Nature is made up with Chinese Knots

     

    However, we will tell you one that is even more astonishing. How about the hypothesis that Nature itself is made up with these knots? We are all taught that there are four fundamental forces in the universe: gravitational, electromagnetic, weak and strong forces. For the theoretical physicists, who care a lot about beauty and simplicity in physical theories, this is rather untidy: why four and why these four? Quite recently it was discovered that the four forces are deeply related to four kinds of knots. In other words, it may be that there are four forces simply because there are four ways of making up knots, in a certain mathematical sense. This discovery was published in 1989, and it is still one of the most active research areas in fundamental physics.

    As William Blake famously put it: 'To see a world in a grain of sand', and it is certainly true that in the Chinese knot we see a lot of things: the beauty of the knot itself; the man, who made up the knots; and the universe, which may be made of knots! While we are admiring the Chinese knots, let us not forget that all these things: knots, man and the universe are but a small shade of that infinitely magnificent display that is Nature.

     

     

     

     


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