The ancient Greek physicists already knew these problems well. Problem 4.40 in the old scroll: Sisyphus rolls a stone up an incline of 20 degrees. The rock weighs something (in whatever ancient Greek weight units). The coefficient of kinetic friction of the stone against the incline is (something). What is the magnitude of Sisyphus' pushing force, what is the "normal" force of the rock against the incline, and how long will it take for the rock to roll down the incline, as always, just before Sisyphus can get it to the top. And how long will Sisyphus have to do this?

I knew that my labor on mathematics and physics would be, uh, of mythical proportions when I determined to do it the right way i.e. mathematically, back in Year 2000. I could have done what many others do, and just read books written for the popular market filled with colorful slick illustrations, accessible explanations, and nary an equation to be seen. I am constantly aware that I am going "against nature" by doing this study. Other women my age are doing appropriate things like scrapbooking and knitting.

I don't have that wonderful easy facility and talent possessed by the young, active, vital physicists who write the blogs I read. Math must come as easy to them as drawing does for me. But despite the platitudes I constantly hear about art and physics being similar, they are NOT similar in most ways. There is hardly any symmetry (as I remarked early on) between the two fields of human endeavor. Physicists can do art or music, even to a professional level, as well as lots of rugged athletic and sporting activities such as biking, long-distance running, and mountain climbing. But it is very rare for an artist to do math or physics at any level, and I don't know too many physically rugged artists. Most of my fellow artists simply cringe when I mention math and physics, and tell me how bad they are in it. Well, so am I. So an important part of my project here is to go against nature and do what few artists ever succeed in doing. Hence, my slow, slow, bit by bit journey through high school physics I should have learned 35 years ago.

Even at my best cognitive level, that is, un-fatigued or un-pressured, I know that in a few weeks I will have forgotten the material I am so painstakingly learning now. I will have to learn it again, or at least review it again. For instance, if someone now were to give me a test in, say, conic sections, I would seriously fail it, especially if the test were under pressure. I hold these science types in awe for having withstood twenty years of intense study, having taken and passed tests under all sorts of adverse conditions, not to mention the social pressures of being a graduate student under withering competition.

Why, then, do I continue to do this? Why not just make pretty and rather superficial paintings incorporating "scientific" themes and forget about those equations with the sines and cosines and coefficients of friction? Because I believe that if I am to truly prove my point and do what I challenge myself to do, I must not take shortcuts or slack off or fake it at any point. I need the tedious, boring, repetitive, mathematical and slow background before I do anything more. It all builds on these foundations. But the work sometimes seems to make no net progress. I roll that rock up the hill every time I go through a set of physics problems.

Posted at 3:50 am | link