Hypars, Leibniz, Newton, Arthur Erickson and Félix Candela
Infinity, An Insipid Equivalent of the Unfinished - Borges
An asymptote is a line or curve that a mathematical function's graph approaches infinitely closely, but never actually reaches or touches. As the coordinates on the graph extend towards infinity, the distance between the curve and the asymptote shrinks to zero. Wikipedia
In 1962 a professor called Chicurel (alas I cannot remember his first name) taught me at Mexico City College the quantum theory and the calculus. The latter has in many ways defined my life.
Just before architect Arthur Erickson died he had dementia. At a function he sat alone as nobody wanted to talk to him. I went up to him and told him that our mutual friend Sean Rossiter had mentioned to me that he (Erickson) had been influenced by Mexican/Spanish architect Félix Candela. I will never forget that for an hour we conversed on hyperbolic paraboloids and the calculus.
Now with so much death in my life of family (and my Rosemary) friends and on May 12 the death of my male cat Niño I have been giving it all some thought while feeling a deep melancholy.
Right after Niño died I threw away his medicines, but kept his eating dish and the brush I used on him every evening. Niña has been smelling the spot where he lay and died in the morning of the 12th. Does she know? Does she remember?
When I used to walk with Niño around the block(no leash) as my Rosemary taught me I came up with the concept of “absent presence”. Without having to believe in ghosts I could sense her walking with Niño. Now when I walk in that back alley will I sense the presence of the two?
The calculus pretty well tells us that nothing ends completely until it hits infinity. Note the concept here of the asymptote curve that hits either the X or Y axis only at infinity.
In this scan of Niño’s brush and dish with a photograph I took of him two days before he died I see a graphic memory of Niño’s persistence in my memory. The other image is of a little spot on the bathroom floor. In the last weeks before he died he could not climb over to his litter box so he began to poop on the floor. I would clean it instantly as it was very difficult to remove once it had dried. Somehow I missed this spot.
Niño is dead, and wherever I go in my house I can imagine him staring at me with those intelligent eyes or begging me to feed him. Something of him including his hair on the brush persists which makes my memory of him that much more substantial.