I believe Bill was querying that question of a particular obscure initialism that Helen had utilized, and now you've taken it out of convex for your own nefarious dolphins.
[/musick mode]

Dear musick: I used to refer to of troy by alluding to the Marlowe quotation. But when it comes to beauty, I doubt that it is possible to give a workable set of rules for identifying it.

We all know beauty when we see it, but could argue endlessly about which of two beauties was the greater.It is mildly interesting that immature persons are often more attractive than they are when they become mature. And a bit baffling that beauty gives such power to the possessor.

...when it comes to beauty, I doubt that it is possible to give a workable set of rules for identifying it

But some people are giving it the ol' college try.

http://tlc.discovery.com/convergence/humanface/articles/mask.html

Interesting article, Sparteye. Unfortunately, it manages to give an important quality of irrational numbers without really explaining what they are (they are numbers that cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers) and gives an almost irrelevant quality (its approximate value) of the golden ratio without saying anything important about why it might be considered beautiful.

Try this for a more in depth view of the golden ratio:

http://www.mcn.net/~jimloy/golden.html

In short the golden ratio is the ratio between the sides of a golden rectangle and a golden rectangle is one which, when you remove a square from it, the remaining rectangle has the same ratio between its sides as the original rectangle.

As football seeks beauty from its "execution"?

That was simply using the term in real life. The article Sparteye linked to was attempting to define the beauty of the golden ratio. I find nothing particularly obvious about the beauty of the number .618... but the notion that it is indicative of a ratio that refers back on itself starts to get somewhere.

And football can be very beautiful in slo-mo with the annoying chatter of the commentators replaced by what we laughingly refer to as serious music.

well-- the old saying is Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and there is a certain truth to that. in term of humans, some aspects of beauty vary from culture to culture, age to age, but some aspects are stadard.. all cultures seem to find symetrical human from beautiful. and clear skin, and certain qualities (and quantities!) of hair.

Non-human forms are harder to quantify for beauty. some of it is learned.. (think of the king of austria, who complained that Mozart's music had "too many notes") some of it is, it seems hard wired into human psyche.. water--since we are so dependant on it, whether immediately visible (a sea scape) or implied--by a lush land scape is thought to be beautiful.. but any one who has lived in a dessert, learn to see beauty in the space landscape, where water is a premium. but, there are still a lot fewer painting of the dessert.

so what is beautiful can be learned..

i am aware of my own conflicting values when it comes to beauty. I love symetry, especially multi fold symetry-- think of a kalidescopes, but i also am enamored by asymetry!

i value beauty-- and i find it every where. in nature, especailly in nature's efforts in the concrete jungle that is manhattan.

i once heard posed an interesting question:

if you could quantify both your beauty and your intellect and then place them in even ratios side by side, and then were given the opportunity to decrease one and augment the other in equal proportions, would you alter either? if so, how much beauty would you 'sell' in order to gain a few IQ points? or would you sacrifice a few points for the opportunity to experience a greater degree of physical beauty? i wonder if our inclinations would change one way or the other depending on our emotional and physical maturity. anyone care to share their take on this?

Both beauty and intellect convey power, but a woman might find a career as an entertainer far more profitable than as a financier. And more fun too. Since men are seldom regarded as beautiful, and the esteem associated with intellectual or athletic superiority is so highly valued, it is hard to imagine a man preferring beauty.

>it is hard to imagine a man preferring beauty.

try imagining a *really ugly guy (and I'm not thinking about "Beauty and the Beast" here; that's a fable with an epimyth).

I take slight offense to the comment that women may get more pleasure from entertaining. I am extremely proud that that which I can control, my intellect/knowledge/technical skills, is what I excel in while that which I cannot control, the symmetry of my face, my skin tone, the shape of my lips, is merely average. While I can and do exercise and take pride in how I look, I am not going to be bothered with the way the genes met/talked/parted.

This is not to say that I wouldn't trade a few IQ points to be blonde, size 2, with a double D chest for a week or two!

"women may get more pleasure from entertaining. " But that is not what I said. They can make more money as an entertainer than they can in any other business, and maybe have fun doing it. Sen. Clinton has been called " the most brilliant woman in the world": (I forget where, or by whom) but her income is I believe far below that of many female entertainers.

This is not to say that I wouldn't trade a few IQ points to be blonde, size 2, with a double D chest for a week or two!

As you implied perhaps, chemeng, the degree of personal control is the thing - the cruelest dictatorship is the rush to judgment imposed by others' preconceptions.

This is true of beauty, brains, gender, skin colour and a host of other attributes to which we all react, is it not?

Chemeng takes slight offense to the comment that women may get more pleasure from entertaining.

Dr. Bill responds: But that is not what I said.

What he said: a woman might find a career as an entertainer far more profitable than as a financier. And more fun too.

Emphasis mine.

All right, I mis-read the post. I am, after all, a stranger here. Perhaps I'm a bit oversensitive being a female in a male-dominated workplace. Oh well, I'm over it. Please don't hate me!!!

As for entertaining being more fun and profitable.....I would think that a lot more intelligent women are sucessful because of their intelligence than beautiful women are because of their beauty. I would doubt that many beautiful women owned their first house at 21 solely due to their beauty.

It is still obvious that the playing field is not level, when gender is involved. Far too many women still get handed the soiled extremity of the baton when advancement is doled out. But I believe that progress, while shamefully slow, will continue to be made.

Chemeng concedes: All right, I mis-read the post.

I dunno. Looks to me like you read it right. Dr. Bill read it wrong.

I didn't read it wrong, but I probably wrote it wrong.

Unfortunately others' preconceptions are not as troublesome as the unwarrantedly inflattering self-image that so many people have that among other things makes the plastic surgeons needlessly rich.

Since men are seldom regarded as beautiful

Says you.

Dear Rapunzel: Some young boys, and a few adolescent males may be beautiful, but I have never seen an adult male that I could call beautiful. Handsome, attractive, yes, but beautiful? No. True femininity is inherently beautiful. An awful lot of money is spent foolishly on clothing and cosmetics by women who would be beautiful in a burlap sack or grass skirt. A smile is the only really essential make-up.

Or to simplify (or maybe confuse):

a----------------------b--------------c

when ab:ac = bc:ab, we have our Golden ratio. This is part of the basis of fractals, and there can be no doubting that these are beautiful.

Both beauty and intellect convey power, but a woman might find a career as an entertainer far more
profitable than as a financier.

Dear Dr. Bill: I have to say I take some umbrage at the association of an entertainment career with a lower intellect. Intellect, depth, and talent are always the key ingredients that make certain performers true artists that transcend and jump out from the rest and reach the hearts and better the lives of millions with their work (see Judy Garland, see Joni Mitchell). I know you may not have intended it to sound that way. But since it did to an extent, and as someone who has spent a good part of his life onstage, I had to point out that the idea of entertainers of any gender being equated with a lower intellect makes me bristle...and is just a silly notion. Actually the gift of rhythm and feeling required for transforming music, acting, dance, etc. into art usually denotes a heightened intellect, even in those who choose to sell-out their integrity and perform at shallow levels for the almighty buck (sadly, these are the ones who usually do themselves in with booze or drugs, etc...hell, even Elvis was frustrated at the level of artistry his image entrapped him with, thus his self-destructive early demise). But I bet one of those old bluesmen like Mississippi John Hurt could talk circles of philosophy, albeit in simpler words, around any one of us here!

>Remember, when someone gets a blackeye we say, "You've got a beaut! A strange connotation!

>"I love life. But I don't love life because it is pretty. Prettiness is only clothes-deep. I am a truer lover than that. I love it naked. There is beauty to me even in its ugliness. In fact, I deny the ugliness entirely, for its vices are often nobler than its virtues, and nearly always closer to a revelation....
To me, the tragic alone has that significant beauty which is truth. It is the meaning of life--and the hope. The noblest is eternally the most tragic. The people who succeed and do not push on to a greater failure are the spiritual middle-classers. Their stopping at success is the proof of their compromising insignificance. How petty their dreams must have been!"

--Eugene O'Neill, from the biography by Barbara and Arthur Gelb

Both beauty and intellect convey power, but a woman might find a career as an entertainer far more
profitable than as a financier.

Dear Dr. Bill: I have to say I take some umbrage at the association of an entertainment career with a lower intellect.

Mercy--I didn't interpret his statement that way at all! I thought the statement referred to the likelihood that it would be easier for a woman to be accepted, and thus garner more income, as an entertainer rather that as a
financier.

That's some philosophy you quoted there, Sweetie. Mr.
O'Neill clearly had a lot more courage than I do.

Thomas Cahill, in his book, How the Irish Saved Civilization, spoke of three enduring irish values, Beauty, Courage, and Generosity.

like many cultural value systems, parts are interlocked.. the irish see a terrible beauty in things other see as tragedy.. irish courage, is singular, personal courage. and it a value that is commonly seen in firehouses -- where the irish are often the dominant group. while fire fighters work as a team or company-- each fire fighter must display single handed personal courage to enter a burning building.. to be couragous, it to be beautiful. -- and to risk your life, to save anothers, is the ultimate act of generousity.

these values are very evident as you look at works of irish authors.. the tragic/ comedy by Synge-- Playboy of the Western World is a wonderful example.. but Cahill gives other.. and certain they where taught to me-- i clearly remember being told once when something frightened me, that -- there was nothing wrong with being frightened, but fear was no excuse for not doing something..

I was in my thirties before i understood what an anxiety attack was-- and then was so surprised that people were stopped by them. I realized i had such attacks, but it never once occured to me, that i was supposed to let them stop me -- or that i should do something to avoid them.. beauty can be achived in overcoming your fears.

Goodness, poor Dr. Bill is getting "what for" on an innocent remark ... just goes to show that -- with this bunch -- not even remarkable age gets you cut any slack!
Now, dear Whit brings up a good point about intelligence and acting/singing etc : Just consider this : you may have 50 or 60 pages of dialogue to memorize, you have to listen to other actors and respond with appropriate facial and body gestures, you have to remember your lines while following directions as to where to sit, stand, move, when and to where...and possibly, all the while, managing a Period Costume and even a wig ... and then, if it's film you have to "hit the marks" ...
Wait a minute! Why would anyone ... ah, yes, the money??
Is this what's called a circular arguement?

the money

(in my experience) comes about last on the list. You can earn more working for McDogburgers than most actors pick up on a regular basis. No, the motivation is elswhere!

Lovely post, Helen.
==========================================================

(in my experience) comes about last on the list. You can earn more working for McDogburgers than most actors pick up on a regular basis. No, the motivation is elswhere!You should know, Sweetie.

My father told me the story of his cousin who, during WW II, was a shipbuilder in the Twin Cities. They built LSTs, which were turned out by the thousands for the war effort. One of these was ill-fated from the start. It slid off the ways into the Mississippi and promptly sank to the bottom. After raising the transport boat, they fixed it and tried again. Sploosh. Bubble. Thud. Down to the bottom. This happened again and again until at last there was a newspaper story about "The Ship that Faced a Thousand Launches."

Later they gave it to George VI, to use as a motor launch. He named her the HMS West; certainly, the Good King's Launch is West.

Dear Ted--I mean Dr. Spooner,

Good King's Launch is West.
Took me a minute, but I got it!
Oh, Honey, I am SO glad you're posting again!

Or to simplify (or maybe confuse):

a----------------------b--------------c

when ab:ac = bc:ab, we have our Golden ratio. This is part of the basis of fractals, and there can be no doubting that these are beautiful.

Although a bit long, I came across something a while ago which has quite an interesting thesis built on the foundation of the golden ratio – I offer it for your consideration!

The golden section is a mathematical ratio of (very) approximately 8:5… […]The ratio can be derived from the Fibonacci series […] each pair of digits slowly converges – after a bit of wobbling – more and more accurately on the ratio. Both the golden rule and the Fibonacci series itself are omnipresent in nature: in the whorls of the pinecone or the seedhead of the sunflower, in the number of the daisy’s petals, in the spirals of the nautilus or the snail’s shell.

The golden section casts its spell over all the arts. The ratio, especially in the form of the ‘golden rectangle’, was often applied to the proportions of classical architecture, and was employed in the construction of the pyramids. In painting the division is often used to position the horizon line or significant detail within the picture, lending the composition an intrinsic rightness. Artists from Leonardo to Seurat used the division in a highly complex way […] It naturally marks the main point of dénouement in many films, dramas and operas.

Perhaps the most significant appearance of the golden section is in music. If you divide the thirteen notes of the chromatic scale from C to C at the golden section, you land on the eighth, the dominant – G. This is the first new note we encounter in the harmonic series. To oversimplify grossly: musical notes are rarely pure, and the dominant, the fifth, is the other note we tend to hear singing above the main note in a musical sound. The relationship between tonic and dominant is the basis for practically the whole of Western music – and this is not dry theory, it’s just the way we hear things […] It seems reasonable to conclude that this vibrational relationship – and we’re talking about all sounds here, not just music – must have penetrated to every part of our spiritual, mental and physical constitution.

In short the golden section is a division we often can’t help making. In poetry its most explicit manifestation – there are plenty of others – is in the division of the sonnet […] evolved organically … as with our horizon line, there’s just a rightness to it… if sonnets had broken smack in the middle, they just wouldn’t have been any fun to write and people wouldn’t have written them.”

from Don Patterson’s Introduction to 101 Sonnets - from Shakespeare to Heaney
Faber & Faber, ISBN 0-571-19732-9

So, beauty is not random. The Great Mathematician who created the universe used numbers in all his designs.

RE: So, beauty is not random.

no-- not, at least, beauty that can be experienced in a physical sense-- either seen or heard or even felt..i suppose there is a certain beauty in taste, and aroma's as well-- but some of this might also be learned--one of my favorite aromas is faint sulfur -- an aroma that is more often called a "smelly". but as a child, i was often prescribed sulfur drugs for strep throat and other infections. So i came to associate the smell of sulfur with "feeling better".. it came to have very positive assoications for me.

but beauty can be abstract-- we have collected many beautiful poems here-- and Max spoke of collecting and using pretty words..
courage can be beautiful -- and love. and dear dr bill, i think you do half the human race a disservice by saying men don't aspire to beauty. (or rather that they don't hold it as high as other attributes) I certain think men can be as beautiful as women-- both physically and abstractly.. but i do recognize that in general, beauty is always considered a attribute in a women, and an aside in a man.

i think the teaching (but not often the religions that grew from them) of Christ and Elijah and Mohammad are beautiful.

in languages, some sound beautiful, french and spanish, particuarly, but the caligraphy of arabic (or farsi, or any of the languages that use the arabic alphabet) is the most beautiful to look at.. language has many ways to be beautiful.

and mathematics is filled with beauty--or perhaps it is that, mathematics is used to express -- to make less abtract, some of the beauty of nature.

but there is random beauty-- a hot yellow daffoldil, a lone spot of color in a late winter slathering of heavy wet snow. there is no mathematics in that.. but there is beauty.

The mathematical background of many things keeps turning up. When I first saw fractals, I thought they were products of chaos. But, oh, dear, no. It would not surprise me to find that other sensory experiences have a numerical background as yet undescribed.