The Kernel

[Hogosha]

So, I'm doing sort of a scene from TWD involving the kernel. Here's the kernel itself, not the actual piece, which will be composed of several different components.
Tis the kernel.
It kinda looks like a funnel cake.

[Peter Murray]

Oh, I like that, especially the glowing effect. It reminds me of the "sculptures" William Latham makes with computer images.

I'd envisaged it differently, though still not quite like the TWD cover. I might try to make my version of the Kernel in a 3D program.

[calliope]

There's nothing wrong with funnel cake. My kernel probably is one.

I like the color you chose; it's close to the one my mind picked for it. Mine was also a glowing, throbbing mass... I like how simple yours is. Can't wait to see the full thing!

[The Defender]

Interestingly enough that looks almost identical to the graphic reprisentation of a String in a Nova special on String Theory/M-Theory that was just on PBS. Thats pretty ironic if you think about it... the Kernel is kind of the heart of a world or a universe, where strings might very well be at the heart of our universes creation.

[Hogosha]

Thank you for the feedback.
If I had a 3-D program, I'd have done it in that. But I like Photoshop, and I can work with it.
I've been meaning to do a bit of research on the String Theory and the like . . .

[Nathan]

I'm quite taken with this as well and was also immediately reminded of the string visualizations ('cartoons') from the Nova The Elegant Universe special. However, given that Hogosha seems to indicate that she hasn't done much research into string theory, I think that this must be coincidental, as all of these sorts of things (wavy, vaguely standing-waves-on-a-circle images) tend to look alike. Moreover, they bear a particular resemblance to certain simplistic visualizations of atomic orbitals (viz., those in the Bohr, or 'solar system' model), of which Hogosha has doubtless seen many, given that one of her interests is quantum mechanics.

Both this and the TWD cover illustration (on which Hogosha's appears to have been based) are pretty good approximations to the way I imagine the kernel, which is basically just a much denser (and hence more complicated) version. I also have it in my head that the "tangle of light" forming the kernel as it presents itself to Nita is a single loop forming one hugely complicated knot—the one on the cover might be like this, but Hogosha's is not. (I'm not sure why I think this, as I don't think that this is supported by the text.)

This also strongly reminds me of some of Dawn Meson's physics-influenced art, particularly Particle Wave, which, again, is influenced by string theory. (Some of the others have no explicit reference to string theory in their descriptions and also share features with both the cover's and Hogosha's images of the kernel.) I even have to wonder whether Cliff Nielsen was at least somewhat influenced by the same string 'cartoons' that The Defender mentioned, provided that they were around back in 2001 when he did the cover—the book The Elegant Universe had just been published, but a cursory glance through its figures doesn't reveal anything like the images from the Nova special, though it's possible that they are featured in other string theory popularizations that were around at that time. My guess, however, is that he simply came up with it on the basis of DD's "glittering tangle of light" and somewhat later "webwork of fire", neither of which themselves seems to be influenced by string theory (though DD certainly has been following it since well before TWD).

Finally, if we choose to believe string theory (and it seems to be canonical science in the YW universe), it seems appropriate rather than ironic for the kernel to have some stringy aspects.

[Doonyal409]

I like it. Can't wait to see the finished product.

[Deus Ira]

It looks exactly like funnel cake but i like funnel cake so its a good thing