Arab Art and Mathematics: Wow

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6389157.stm

<snip>
A study of medieval Islamic art has shown some of its geometric patterns use principles established centuries later by modern mathematicians.

Researchers in the US have found 15th Century examples that use the concept of quasicrystalline geometry.

This indicates intuitive understanding of complex mathematical formulae, even if the artisans had not worked out the underlying theory, the study says.

The discovery is published in the journal Science.

The research shows an important breakthrough had occurred in Islamic mathematics and design by 1200.

"It's absolutely stunning," Harvard's Peter Lu said in an interview.
--------------

were totally destroyed when the Ottoman empire fell. Perhaps that's one reason for their miseries these days..

Generation after generation of war, religious zealotry and ignorance has turned them inside out and upside down..

sad..

I wonder if we're heading down that same road...

We are devouring ourselves.

and shook my head.

It's a very good lesson for those in our country who believe that we are the crowning achievement of human accomplishment. The flowering of Arab mathematical and artistic (especially architecture and literature) genius in what were in Western terms, medieval times, demonstrates how the human condition rises to great peaks, only to fall in a few short centuries to a devastating low. Fundamentalist religious anarchy, similar of that preached by the Talibornagain in the US, destroyed the fount of Arab creativity during the last two centuries, buried under a monarchial and mullah dominated society that panders to the dark, irrational side of human nature. Our descendants are facing that sort of dizzying collapse, followed by darkness dominated by frothing, spittle-emitting mullahs defacing the word of Joshua ben Joseph whose philsophy derived from Hillel a century earlier. . . oh wait, it's happening!

Nice, I like that.
Can I use it?