Talk:Introduction to Symmetry

Maybe the lobster would be better as a Jesus fish - naturally horizontal.

The Yin-yang should be Escher's Plane Filling Motif with Reptiles. Then yin-yang could move to the exercises.

The recycle symbol has real problems - it's definitely not order 3 rotation - one arrow bends the wrong way.

Bio/chem section

I did a lot of work on this. Reorganized to have the structure: macrobio, microbio, chem. Added some info about mate preference and some references. Combined duplicated statements about L/R forms. Took out the bit about phenylketonuria, because I couldn't find any evidence that it's related to symmetry - got a reference? Here's what it used to say:

There are instances where getting the wrong form of the molecule could be dangerous. There is an illness called phenylketonuria. This is a metabolic disease caused by the wrong type of phenyl-alanine. This illness eventually causes the patient to go insane.

I took out the bit about methane. How is symmetry important to understanding methane? If it is, I'd like to include this bit, but let's explain why it's relevant. Here's what it used to say:

You may have seen the stick-and-ball models of for instance methane, or you may have seen the double helix shape of DNA. We know what these molecules look like because of how they behave under rotations for instance.

The last paragraph, about chemistry and heat conduction still has problems, but I'm done for tonight. Mainly, I kind of doubt this statement about conductivity. Cookware is usually metal, which has little crystal structure. I think. I'd like to see a reference here.

Explorations in the text

Anneke wrote:

Steve and I were talking about having the explorations listed somewhere in the text. Right now they are (sometimes) mentioned in the text, but for people who are new to the text it would be nice to have a list of explorations pertaining tp the topic easily accessible.

On some of the pages there is a separate heading for the exercises. I think it makes sense to have a list of available explorations under a separate heading as well.

I was debating between having the list in the beginning or at the end. I personally think the explorations should be listed at the beginning of each section. From a pedagogical point of view we want the students to be exploring the ideas before they delve into all the theory, so that place makes the most sense to me.

I didn't want to start on a general overhaul of the text like that without first consulting with you two.

To show you what I had in mind I changed the Introduction to Symmetry page slightly.

Looks good to me. Eventually, I was thinking of doing something fancier and more visually distinctive, but you gotta crawl before you walk!

I will say that tagging explorations in the text is still a good idea, so that students and instructors can very specifically match the exploration with the topic in the text. In fact, this linking should probably go the other way as well. Right now, the little sentences mentioning explorations are awkward. Once you've got them listed at the top of the page, maybe we could just have an icon that indicates "exploration here" and links to it.

This can obviously wait a while, but I might take it on sometime.

Bryan 10:36, 6 September 2007 (CDT)

Looks good to me, too. But I note that the Compositions Exploration is cited in the text in the section but not placed at the top--and also not mentioned in Anneke's course outline for this week (and, therefore, not mentioned in mine either, as I'm largely copying Anneke's). (As a matter of fact, I'm not going to have time to get to it this week; but I now thing I may want to expend the time next week.)

Steve 10:52, 6 September 2007 (CDT)

I added the composition exploration. I'm probably not doing that exporation this time. --Barta 11:46, 6 September 2007 (CDT)

imperfect coloring links

The links to imperfect colorings both go to the same place, which does not show the desired patterns: The lizard pattern there is perfecly colored, and there's no weightlifter pattern at all.

Steve 11:24, 10 September 2007 (CDT)

We talked about this the other day, but it's worth setting down on "paper".. the Regular Division of the Plane Drawings page has only a selection of all of them. See the Style Guide for more details on how to reference the sketches.Bryan 22:35, 12 September 2007 (CDT)

But the Style Guide recommendation doesn't work: The so-called reference to Sketch #3, Sketch #3 (weightlifters), doesn't show that sketch, but four small sketches (apparently the only page that ever gets shown by the recommended reference in the Style Guide). Steve 12:16, 14 September 2007 (CDT)

New applications section

Looks nice Anneke! It would benefit from links and/or references so readers could go elsewhere for more details. Bryan 22:31, 12 September 2007 (CDT)