Thoughts rearrange, familiar now strange.break flowersmore quotes

# numbers: beautiful

DNA on 10th — street art, wayfinding and font

# visualization + design

The 2019 Pi Day art celebrates digits of $\pi$ with hundreds of languages and alphabets. If you're a kid at heart—rejoice—there's a special edition for you!

# $\pi$ Day 2016 Art Posters

2019 $\pi$ has hundreds of digits, hundreds of languages and a special kids' edition.
2018 $\pi$ day
2017 $\pi$ day
2016 $\pi$ approximation day
2016 $\pi$ day
2015 $\pi$ day
2014 $\pi$ approx day
2014 $\pi$ day
2013 $\pi$ day
Circular $\pi$ art

On March 14th celebrate $\pi$ Day. Hug $\pi$—find a way to do it.

For those who favour $\tau=2\pi$ will have to postpone celebrations until July 26th. That's what you get for thinking that $\pi$ is wrong. I sympathize with this position and have $\tau$ day art too!

If you're not into details, you may opt to party on July 22nd, which is $\pi$ approximation day ($\pi$ ≈ 22/7). It's 20% more accurate that the official $\pi$ day!

Finally, if you believe that $\pi = 3$, you should read why $\pi$ is not equal to 3.

All art posters are available for purchase.
I take custom requests.

This year's $\pi$ day art collection celebrates not only the digit but also one of the fundamental forces in nature: gravity.

In February of 2016, for the first time, gravitational waves were detected at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).

The signal in the detector was sonified—a process by which any data can be encoded into sound to provide hints at patterns and structure that we might otherwise miss—and we finally heard what two black holes sound like. A buzz and chirp.

The art is featured in the Gravity of Pi article on the Scientific American SA Visual blog.

## this year's theme music

All the art was processed while listening to Roses by Coeur de Pirate, a brilliant female French-Canadian songwriter, who sounds like a mix of Patricia Kaas and Lhasa. The lyrics Oublie-moi (Forget me) are fitting with this year's theme of gravity.

Mais laisse-moi tomber, laisse-nous tomber
Laisse la nuit trembler en moi
Laisse-moi tomber, laisse nous tomber
Cette fois

But let me fall, let us fall
Let the night tremble in me
Let me fall, let us fall
This time

## simulating gravity in 2d

The gravitational force between two masses $m_1$ located at $(x_1,y_1)$ and $m_2$ located at $(x_2,y_2)$ is given by

$$F = \frac{G m_1 m_2}{r^2} \tag{1}$$

where $r$ is the distance between the masses given by

$$r = \sqrt{ \Delta x ^2 + \Delta y ^2 } = \sqrt{ (x_2-x_1)^2 + (y_2-y_1)^2 } \tag{2}$$

The force is directed along the vector formed by $r$ and can be decomposed into $x$ and $y$ components using \begin{align} F_x &= F \frac{ \Delta x}{r} = F \frac{x_2-x_1}{r} \tag{3} \\ F_y &= F \frac{ \Delta y}{r} =F \frac{y_2-y_1}{r} \tag{4} \end{align}

The acceleration of each mass can be obtained using $F = ma$ and similarly decomposed into $x$ and $y$ components \begin{align} a_{1x} &= \frac { F_{1x} }{ m_1} = \frac{G m_2 \Delta x}{r^3} \tag{5} \\ a_{1y} &= \frac { F_{1y} }{ m_1} = \frac{G m_2 \Delta y}{r^3} \tag{6} \\ a_{2x} &= \frac { F_{2x} }{ m_2} = -\frac{G m_1 \Delta x}{r^3} \tag{7} \\ a_{2y} &= \frac { F_{2y} }{ m_2} = -\frac{G m_1 \Delta y}{r^3} \tag{8} \end{align}

When there are $n$ masses in the system, the acceleration of mass $i$ is the sum of the accelerations due to all other masses \begin{align} a_{ix} &= \sum_{i \ne j} \frac{G m_j \Delta x_{ij}}{r_{ij}^3} \tag{9} \\ a_{iy} &= \sum_{i \ne j} \frac{G m_j \Delta y_{ij}}{r_{ij}^3} \tag{10} \end{align}

The equations of motion for the masses over a period of time $\Delta t$ are

\begin{align} \Delta v_x &= \Delta t a_x \tag{11} \\ \Delta v_y &= \Delta t a_y \tag{12} \\ \Delta x &= \Delta t \left( v_x + a_x \frac{\Delta t}{2} \right) \tag{13} \\ \Delta y &= \Delta t \left( v_y + a_y \frac{\Delta t}{2} \right) \tag{14} \end{align}

## numerical simulation

There are various ways in which the numerical simulation can be performed. The Euler, Verlet, Runge-Kutta methods are perhaps the most common. I use the Verlet approach.

Using the equations of motions above, the Verlet simulation goes as follows

1. calculate acceleration, $a_1$ (eq 9,10)
2. update position (eq 13,14)
3. calculate new acceleration, $a_2$ (eq 9,10)
4. update velocity using $(a_1+a_2)/2$ (eq 7,8)

The masses are initially uniformly distributed on a circle and given a zero initial velocity or a normally distributed random velocity.

I ran about 10,000 individual simulations with different values of $n$ and $k$ and collected ones that stood out as pretty.

## collisions

The size of a mass is taken to be $s = m^{1/3}$. When two masses, $m_1$ and $m_2$ come within a distance of $\left( s_1 + s_2 \right)(1-z)$ of each other, they collide. Here $z$ is a collision margin parameter that I set to either $z=0$ or $z=0.25$.

During the collision, a new body is created with mass $M = m_1 + m_2$ given a speed that conserves momentum in the collision. \begin{align} v_x &= \frac{m_1 v_{1x} + m_2 v_{2x} }{M} \\ v_y &= \frac{m_1 v_{1y} + m_2 v_{2y} }{M} \end{align}

## values

For my simulation, the following values are used

• $G = 100$
• mass for each digit, $d$ is $(1+d)^k$
• masses placed on circle with radius $216$
• when randomized, $(v_x,v_y) \sim N(0,1)$
• $\Delta t = 0.01$
• simulation runs for up to 100,000 steps
• canvas size is $1440 \times 1440$
VIEW ALL

# Yearning for the Infinite — Aleph 2

Mon 18-11-2019

Discover Cantor's transfinite numbers through my music video for the Aleph 2 track of Max Cooper's Yearning for the Infinite (album page, event page).

Yearning for the Infinite, Max Cooper at the Barbican Hall, London. Track Aleph 2. Video by Martin Krzywinski. Photo by Michal Augustini. (more)

I discuss the math behind the video and the system I built to create the video.

# Hidden Markov Models

Mon 18-11-2019

Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.
—Rene Magritte

A Hidden Markov Model extends a Markov chain to have hidden states. Hidden states are used to model aspects of the system that cannot be directly observed and themselves form a Markov chain and each state may emit one or more observed values.

Hidden states in HMMs do not have to have meaning—they can be used to account for measurement errors, compress multi-modal observational data, or to detect unobservable events.

Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Hidden Markov Models. (read)

In this column, we extend the cell growth model from our Markov Chain column to include two hidden states: normal and sedentary.

We show how to calculate forward probabilities that can predict the most likely path through the HMM given an observed sequence.

Grewal, J., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2019) Points of significance: Hidden Markov Models. Nature Methods 16:795–796.

Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2019) Points of significance: Markov Chains. Nature Methods 16:663–664.

# Hola Mundo Cover

Sat 21-09-2019

My cover design for Hola Mundo by Hannah Fry. Published by Blackie Books.

Hola Mundo by Hannah Fry. Cover design is based on my 2013 $\pi$ day art. (read)

Curious how the design was created? Read the full details.

# Markov Chains

Tue 30-07-2019

You can look back there to explain things,
but the explanation disappears.
You'll never find it there.
Things are not explained by the past.
They're explained by what happens now.
—Alan Watts

A Markov chain is a probabilistic model that is used to model how a system changes over time as a series of transitions between states. Each transition is assigned a probability that defines the chance of the system changing from one state to another.

Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Markov Chains. (read)

Together with the states, these transitions probabilities define a stochastic model with the Markov property: transition probabilities only depend on the current state—the future is independent of the past if the present is known.

Once the transition probabilities are defined in matrix form, it is easy to predict the distribution of future states of the system. We cover concepts of aperiodicity, irreducibility, limiting and stationary distributions and absorption.

This column is the first part of a series and pairs particularly well with Alan Watts and Blond:ish.

Grewal, J., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2019) Points of significance: Markov Chains. Nature Methods 16:663–664.

# 1-bit zoomable gigapixel maps of Moon, Solar System and Sky

Mon 22-07-2019

Places to go and nobody to see.

Exquisitely detailed maps of places on the Moon, comets and asteroids in the Solar System and stars, deep-sky objects and exoplanets in the northern and southern sky. All maps are zoomable.

3.6 gigapixel map of the near side of the Moon, annotated with 6,733. (details)
100 megapixel and 10 gigapixel map of the Solar System on 20 July 2019, annotated with 758k asteroids, 1.3k comets and all planets and satellites. (details)
100 megapixle and 10 gigapixel map of the Northern Celestial Hemisphere, annotated with 44 million stars, 74,000 deep-sky objects and 3,000 exoplanets. (details)
100 megapixle and 10 gigapixel map of the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, annotated with 69 million stars, 88,000 deep-sky objects and 1000 exoplanets. (details)