The mysterious pentagon

by | Monday, November 01, 2010

There are interesting patterns all around us. Here is one I found the other day. We were boiling lentils in a shallow bowl… and then, out of nowhere emerged an almost perfect pentagon!

The almost perfect pentagon that showed up on the surface
of the boiling lentils!

How cool is that. And does it mean something that five is a magical number (see thisthis and this). As this page on numerology says

Five is the symbol of human microcosm. The number of the human being. Human forms—the pentagon when arms and legs are out stretched. The pentagon is endless —sharing the symbolism of perfection and power of the circle. Five is a circular number as it produces itself in its last digit when raised to its own power. The pentacle, like the circle symbolizes whole, the quincunx being the number of its center and the meeting point of heaven, earth, and the four cardinal points plus the center point.

Five is also representative of the Godhead – Central Creator of the four fours plus itself equalling five. Five is the marriage of the hieros gamos as combination of feminine and the masculine. Feminine being even, as 2, in frequency and masculine being odd as 3 in frequency = 5.

The number five symbolizes meditation; religion; versatility. It represents the five senses (taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing) everywhere except in the East. In the East there are six—the extra being Mind. We find meanings to five in the five petaled flower, five pointed leaves–especially the ROSE. The Rose has much symbolism, but also the lily, vine, all of which represent the microcosm.

The five pointed star depicts individuality and spiritual aspiration, and education when it points upward. The five pointed star pointing downward represents witchcraft, and it is used in black magic. Noted: There is a very broad difference between witchcraft and black magic.

The number five formed the first counting process from which all else came.

Hmm… so what does this magical appearance of the pentagon mean?

If we believe that every pattern has some underlying explanation, can there be a more mundane explanation? I have a possible hypothesis of what lies behind this phenomena… but what do you think? Where did this pattern come from?

Topics related to this post: Design | Evolution | Fun | Personal | Puzzles | Religion | Representation | Worth Reading

A few randomly selected blog posts…

TPACK survey, new journal article

Hot off the press: Schmidt, D. A., Baran, E., Thompson, A. D.,  Mishra, P.,  Koehler, M.J. & Shin, T. S. (2010). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK): The development and validation of an assessment instrument for preservice teachers. Journal of...

Jabberwocky goes to graduate school

The 5th floor of Erickson Hall is a fun place to be. Typically a bunch of graduate students hang out there, working on their readings, talking shop and in general having a good time. For some reason, last week, I promised Josh Rosenberg that I would write a poem for...

The blame (& praise) game continues

I have shared earlier a design for a reflection ambigram for the two words "praise" and "blame" - where one word becomes another when reflected in a mirror. In fact the design has been printed in 3D. As it turns out this was a design that I had made many years ago -...

Video on MSU/Azim Premji University collaboration

Over the past year I have been involved in an exciting new initiative - a partnership between the College of Education at Michigan State University and the newly set up Azim Premji University in Bangalore, India. (A previous post about our ongoing work can be found...

Good Evil Ambigram

Brad Honeycutt, a fellow Spartan (he graduated 1996 a couple of years before I started here at Michigan State) is fascinated by optical illusions. He has completed a couple of books on optical illusions the first of which will be coming out in July. Scott Kim, one of...

Goodbye 2016, Welcome 2017

Goodbye 2016, Welcome 2017

Since 2009, our family has made short videos to welcome the new year. These videos are great fun to create, often requiring days of discussion, planning, construction, shooting and editing. They are always typographical in nature, often with a visual twist...

Update IV

Chris from Creativity Portal dropped off a "strong" message to me on my website (see it here). Just a couple of points. First, I have not received the email they sent me (I do not question the fact that they did send it) - just that I did not receive it. I checked my...

Creativity…

There is an absolutely dull and pointless story in today's NYTimes on creativity. Though it is titled Eureka! It Really Takes Years of Hard Work, this story clearly did not take much time to write. I agree not all articles in the Times are (or need to be) hard news......

Pi(e) day, 2019

Pi(e) day, 2019

A design created in celebration of Pi-day, 2019. (More context about the day here and more about the number itself here). As always, the OofSI team celebrates Pi(e) day by offering a selection of Pi(e)'s - exactly at 1:59 PM. Totally irrational I know! Apart from...

17 Comments

  1. Mindy

    I think that hear source or no heat source, shapes can form all around us and if we delve so very deep into it, perhaps, in 90% of cases, we could find a logical explanation. However the human factor here is that this shape (because of the heat source) has probably appeared to you countless times and you never noticed/stood to attention to it, until THIS particular time. There is a reason your intuition highlighted this image to you – a message for YOU to head. A message, a sign, take it as you will. And that is crucially where the importance of this lies. I hope you deciphered it’s message for you, as the universe, the energies around us, was speaking to you ?

    Reply
    • Ion

      No link to site

      Reply
  2. david

    If you look at the shape of single lentil seeds, most of them have signs of a faceted pentagon. When they are being boiled in water or other liquid the chaotic motion make them agglomerate (get together)and agglomerated groups take a shape of a pentagon as the single seeds are pushed toward each other and cannot rotate anymore as a result of the motion. Similar things happen during a single crystalline substance growth in material science.

    Reply
  3. Fiat Beograd

    Shape is neat but what could it be otherwise?

    Reply
  4. Gamos

    It’s the first time that hieros gamos (which means holy marriages) is mentioned with the pentagon i guess. Nice explanation of the pattern though.

    Reply
  5. Spyware trial

    The question that immediately pops to mind is if this is a one time event (just a coincident) or does it repeat itself over and over again.

    Reply
  6. Andrew Francis

    It is quite a strange shape shape but the idea that the heat source has the same kind of shape is probably the reason for it.

    Even though it is still pretty cool the shape that has formed in the lentils.

    Reply
  7. Autokary

    “I think it might be an issue of heat distribution and you may want to have the stovetop examined.”

    I agree with Chris F.

    Regards

    kubek

    Reply
  8. Greg

    It’s thought provoking to delve into the mysteries of how we perceive and why we can preceive through suggestion. If I were to look at your picture without the suggestion that there is a pentagon, I would see boiling lentils clumped together through some sort of microthermal attraction. The space in between the lentils is there because someone stirred the boiling mixture. If the pot had not been disturbed, I wonder if the lentils would be grouped together in the middle of the pot? If the pot’s bottom were shaped with a rounded edge, would this further encourage the lentil grouping?

    Another thought deals with an analogy to cloud watching. What other shapes can be seen in this design?

    Also, if we were to stir the lentils vigorously for a period of time and then allow them to settle, would they form a massive group in the pan’s middle? If we shut off the heat, would the lentils group together or spread apart? What if we were to add salt?

    Good example!

    Reply
  9. Karen Milczynski

    I agree with the previous posts that say it likely formed this way because of the heat source below… however, I also agree with JC… At first glance I saw the pentagon, but I actually see a bunch of pentagons from different angles. I see a soccer ball. (Probably because I’m eagerly awaiting my co-ed soccer league to start up play.) I think there is a personal perspective that heavily influences what we see here.

    Reply
  10. Daniel

    Its a Pentagon…. thats it,…

    Reply
  11. Chloe

    I would assume that the pattern reflects the shape of the burner. Too simple?

    Reply
  12. Jean-Claude

    Hi Punya

    I don’t think this is a pentagon any more than it is a paw or a human hand with the fingers folded and thumb stretched out.
    To see the picture of the paw and human hand, please visit my blog at jeanclaude1.edublogs.org.

    I didn’t see a pentagon until you pointed it out. There isn’t a pentagon or paw or human hand or anything else. There’s only what our mind allows us to see. Your being in the US probably influenced your perception of a pentagon. I saw a paw because I have 2 puppies and I see their paws everywhere:-)As for the hand, it might be because I used to draw a lot when i was little, mainly human body parts. And I’m sure other people can see other shapes based on their cultural background. This is the answer to what you saw: Your cultural background.

    JC

    Reply
  13. Mary

    it’s all about the heat source from underneath – areas of the dish were heated differently than other areas so changed the distribution of the ingredients.
    🙂

    Reply
  14. Chris F.

    I think it might be an issue of heat distribution and you may want to have the stovetop examined.

    Seriously however, since the Pentagon is also the Department of Defense building for the US, maybe it was a premonition of the recent explosive scare on the airlines.

    Reply
  15. Bob Reuter

    soooo coool… I’m looking forward to the explanations… 🙂

    Reply

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. The mysterious pentagon… explained? | Punya Mishra's Web - [...] The mysterious pentagon [...]

Leave a Reply to Chris F. Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *