Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mls@sfsup.att.com (Mike Siemon) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Swastika Message-ID: Date: 21 Apr 91 05:43:02 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 29 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , sandrock@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Mark Sandrock) writes: > in the "natural" direction of rotation, i.e., clockwise, the American Indian > symbol has a "stroking" effect, whereas the swastika has a "tearing" effect. This has only the most tangential relevance to soc.religion.christian, but I wonder WHAT the ??? you mean by "natural" direction of rotation? The way our (analogue!) clocks turn is essentially an arbitrary choice of one of two possibilities. If you turn fylfot & swastika the OTHER way, then which one is "stroking" and which "tearing" is suddenly different. As a mathematician, observing the "urrotation" of t -> exp(it), I would have to say that the "natural" direction of rotation is widdershins -- but that too is dependent on the way we apply coordinates arbitrarily in the complex plane. Do you mean to suggest that because Hebrew writes from right to left that God wants angles to increase in the opposite sense, and Bishop Berkeley was right about me and my colleagues being "infidels?" Ah, all this calculus is a sad mistake! (The Chinese, who invented the compass, and named it the "south-pointing" device will also have come up with your "natural" direction of rotation had they gone on to invent complex analysis as well; yet another indictment of the infidel mathematicians of Christendom -- must be a satanic plot.) -- Michael L. Siemon The Son of Man has come eating and drinking; ...!att!attunix!mls and you say "Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, m.siemon@ATT.COM a friend of tax collectors and sinners." And standard disclaimer yet, Wisdom is justified by all her children.