God Sleeps in the Minerals - Comments

God Sleeps in the Minerals

bmordue

God, or Cthulhu?

sunkeeh

They're minerals, Marie!

srslyTrying2hlp

I didnt like the title. Even if the pictures are nice.

vscode-rest

Don't be curmudgeonly.

isoprophlex

I liked the title, and the pictures are nice too.

criddell

Don't be afraid to let a little poetry into your life.

recallingmemory

The term "God" doesn't need to be reserved for only the religious. We're allowed to be in awe of this place too.

hermitcrab

It's fine as a poetic term. But no god is required. Just time, pressure and the laws of physics.

jasonjei

That’s fine, but you don’t have to be a deist to appreciate the title. Moby named one of his songs “God Moving Over the Face of the Water.” The author chose to use a metaphor many of us are familiar with, and even some atheists connote “God” to the mysterious existence of the universe, symbolic to the many collisions of stars that led us here.

jacquesm

You're not seriously trying to help.

cwmoore

“Are you familiar with the Stone Tape Theory?”

(Post Malone’s response in a Joe Rogan interview when asked about McKenna’s Stoned Ape Theory)

hmokiguess

Don't know why, but I think of Aliens instead. Gorgeous pictures!

eurohand

Cthulhu*

vscode-rest

The Cubes are the most captivating to me. Organic mishmash of polyhedra and assorted blobs is one thing, but perfect cubes is uniquely striking.

chasil
namanyayg

Pyrite or fool's gold, lovely mathematical perfection and a great etymology to match!

adrian_b

True, but among the minerals with cubic crystal structure it is not unusual for them to be found as crystals that are perfect regular or semiregular polyhedra, with a shape characteristic for the mineral, for instance octahedron (e.g. spinel, diamond), rhombic dodecahedron (e.g. garnet) or cube (e.g. pyrite).

I suppose that the crystals from the picture are of pyrite, which frequently looks like this.

In the antiquity, when what are now called diamonds (the Romans and the Greeks called them "Indian adamants", because they were first encountered by Europeans during the expedition in India of Alexander the Great; "adamant" meant something else in Europe) were very difficult to cut and polish, they were normally used as gems in their natural shape of regular octahedra.

Cutting diamonds from their natural octahedral shape into polyhedra with more facets, e.g. brilliant, was invented much later.

Ifkaluva

You can buy pyrite cubes on Etsy—I know because I also love them :)

They’re not expensive

MengerSponge

What about organic mishmashes that are shaped into cubes?

https://www.science.org/content/article/how-do-wombats-poop-...

danhau

That pyramid shape in the amethyst is what grabbed me. Looks like something straight out of a video game. Incredible.

cheevly

Imagine associating god with some minerals.

GroksBarnacles

Not a theist myself, but I can certainly imagine a believer seeing god in all the wonders of nature.

"The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you."

krunck

Imagine associating $DEITY with war, slaughter, and destruction. I prefer the mineral $DEITY.

carlosjobim

Have you heard about Islam?

sawjet

The Crystals. They speak to me.

cgannett

pretty crystals are pretty, gonna file this under "cool game dev inspo"

cbolton

The first picture looks like aura quartz to me (crystal with an artificial metal coating). Is it natural?

Luc

It’s indeed vacuum deposited metal on natural quartz crystal.

Uncle_Brumpus

These types of huge perfect specimens always take my breath away when I am able to see them in person. To think that this kind of stuff just kinda exists buried in the earth...

I am a part of a local mineral club which hosts several "field trips" a year to various mineralogically interesting locations (most of which aren't accessible as an individual, like private land and special digs at active mining/quarrying sites on their days off). I have never found anything even remotely as beautiful as the specimens shown, but the small collection of mildly interesting things that I've smashed out of the earth with my own 2 hands is amazingly satisfying to me. You don't even have to be a super dedicated "rock nerd" to take part, I highly recommend looking for local mineral clubs to join if this even remotely interests you. It's really a ton of fun!

zokier

First thought in my head was that these would make great demos for 3DGS: both geometry and light interactions are non-trivial. I imagine that makes them difficult to capture with traditional photogrammetry

shevy-java

Some of these look pretty cool actually.

I don't see any god though, but I think I saw godzilla hiding in one of those shapes.

deadbabe

Coming across perfect cubes in the wild must be insane

navane

Prague national History Museum has an amazing collection of these. Truly a hidden gem.

lukan

Terra Mineralia in Freiberg (quite close to Prague), is also worth a visit.

jihadjihad

> Truly a hidden gem

Where the gems are in plain sight!

cpursley

Tellus in Georgia has an incredible collection:

https://tellusmuseum.org/exhibit/weinman-mineral-gallery/

shivaniShimpi_

oh my god, this is gorg. i love museums for the same exact thing. there's so much you donno and every visit just leaves me in awe. thank you for sharing it. big wide bful world

thatmf

[dead]

mannanj

The shamans would test your ability of spirit by qualifying if you "Know the Stone People". They are the oldest beings, the keepers of deep wisdom and knowledge.

jrsdav

Kind of fun to think that the crystalline structure of minerals is an "echo" of their arrangement of atoms. A repeating pattern on a scale we can actually observe.

vivzkestrel

Hank Schrader from breaking bad

"They are not rocks, they are minerals marie"

gyanchawdhary

Check out the yt talk on "king of kashmir" .. the world's largest aquamarine discovered in Karakoram mountains (pakistan) .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujGJwq3PaU0

julianeon
alnwlsn

I've been to a few mineral museums like this and one of the interesting ones you can come across is Asbestos. Just hanging out there on display right next to some other mineral. It forms beautiful formations just like the rest, but I've heard so many mesothelioma lawyer commercials that it's easy to forget it's a completely natural material. Also one you can pick apart like cotton and weave into a fabric - it's a flexible material, made out of a rock, which can kill you.

The asbestos formations are ones they keep behind glass.

wolfi1

reminds me of a quote from my favorite band: God thinks in the geniuses, he dreams in the poets and he sleeps in the rest of the people

bmordue

God, or Cthulhu?

sunkeeh

They're minerals, Marie!

srslyTrying2hlp

I didnt like the title. Even if the pictures are nice.

vscode-rest

Don't be curmudgeonly.

isoprophlex

I liked the title, and the pictures are nice too.

criddell

Don't be afraid to let a little poetry into your life.

recallingmemory

The term "God" doesn't need to be reserved for only the religious. We're allowed to be in awe of this place too.

hermitcrab

It's fine as a poetic term. But no god is required. Just time, pressure and the laws of physics.

jasonjei

That’s fine, but you don’t have to be a deist to appreciate the title. Moby named one of his songs “God Moving Over the Face of the Water.” The author chose to use a metaphor many of us are familiar with, and even some atheists connote “God” to the mysterious existence of the universe, symbolic to the many collisions of stars that led us here.

jacquesm

You're not seriously trying to help.

cwmoore

“Are you familiar with the Stone Tape Theory?”

(Post Malone’s response in a Joe Rogan interview when asked about McKenna’s Stoned Ape Theory)

hmokiguess

Don't know why, but I think of Aliens instead. Gorgeous pictures!

eurohand

Cthulhu*

vscode-rest

The Cubes are the most captivating to me. Organic mishmash of polyhedra and assorted blobs is one thing, but perfect cubes is uniquely striking.

chasil
namanyayg

Pyrite or fool's gold, lovely mathematical perfection and a great etymology to match!

adrian_b

True, but among the minerals with cubic crystal structure it is not unusual for them to be found as crystals that are perfect regular or semiregular polyhedra, with a shape characteristic for the mineral, for instance octahedron (e.g. spinel, diamond), rhombic dodecahedron (e.g. garnet) or cube (e.g. pyrite).

I suppose that the crystals from the picture are of pyrite, which frequently looks like this.

In the antiquity, when what are now called diamonds (the Romans and the Greeks called them "Indian adamants", because they were first encountered by Europeans during the expedition in India of Alexander the Great; "adamant" meant something else in Europe) were very difficult to cut and polish, they were normally used as gems in their natural shape of regular octahedra.

Cutting diamonds from their natural octahedral shape into polyhedra with more facets, e.g. brilliant, was invented much later.

Ifkaluva

You can buy pyrite cubes on Etsy—I know because I also love them :)

They’re not expensive

MengerSponge

What about organic mishmashes that are shaped into cubes?

https://www.science.org/content/article/how-do-wombats-poop-...

danhau

That pyramid shape in the amethyst is what grabbed me. Looks like something straight out of a video game. Incredible.

cheevly

Imagine associating god with some minerals.

GroksBarnacles

Not a theist myself, but I can certainly imagine a believer seeing god in all the wonders of nature.

"The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you."

krunck

Imagine associating $DEITY with war, slaughter, and destruction. I prefer the mineral $DEITY.

carlosjobim

Have you heard about Islam?

sawjet

The Crystals. They speak to me.

cgannett

pretty crystals are pretty, gonna file this under "cool game dev inspo"

cbolton

The first picture looks like aura quartz to me (crystal with an artificial metal coating). Is it natural?

Luc

It’s indeed vacuum deposited metal on natural quartz crystal.

Uncle_Brumpus

These types of huge perfect specimens always take my breath away when I am able to see them in person. To think that this kind of stuff just kinda exists buried in the earth...

I am a part of a local mineral club which hosts several "field trips" a year to various mineralogically interesting locations (most of which aren't accessible as an individual, like private land and special digs at active mining/quarrying sites on their days off). I have never found anything even remotely as beautiful as the specimens shown, but the small collection of mildly interesting things that I've smashed out of the earth with my own 2 hands is amazingly satisfying to me. You don't even have to be a super dedicated "rock nerd" to take part, I highly recommend looking for local mineral clubs to join if this even remotely interests you. It's really a ton of fun!

zokier

First thought in my head was that these would make great demos for 3DGS: both geometry and light interactions are non-trivial. I imagine that makes them difficult to capture with traditional photogrammetry

shevy-java

Some of these look pretty cool actually.

I don't see any god though, but I think I saw godzilla hiding in one of those shapes.

deadbabe

Coming across perfect cubes in the wild must be insane

navane

Prague national History Museum has an amazing collection of these. Truly a hidden gem.

lukan

Terra Mineralia in Freiberg (quite close to Prague), is also worth a visit.

jihadjihad

> Truly a hidden gem

Where the gems are in plain sight!

cpursley

Tellus in Georgia has an incredible collection:

https://tellusmuseum.org/exhibit/weinman-mineral-gallery/

shivaniShimpi_

oh my god, this is gorg. i love museums for the same exact thing. there's so much you donno and every visit just leaves me in awe. thank you for sharing it. big wide bful world

thatmf

[dead]

mannanj

The shamans would test your ability of spirit by qualifying if you "Know the Stone People". They are the oldest beings, the keepers of deep wisdom and knowledge.

jrsdav

Kind of fun to think that the crystalline structure of minerals is an "echo" of their arrangement of atoms. A repeating pattern on a scale we can actually observe.

vivzkestrel

Hank Schrader from breaking bad

"They are not rocks, they are minerals marie"

gyanchawdhary

Check out the yt talk on "king of kashmir" .. the world's largest aquamarine discovered in Karakoram mountains (pakistan) .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujGJwq3PaU0

julianeon
alnwlsn

I've been to a few mineral museums like this and one of the interesting ones you can come across is Asbestos. Just hanging out there on display right next to some other mineral. It forms beautiful formations just like the rest, but I've heard so many mesothelioma lawyer commercials that it's easy to forget it's a completely natural material. Also one you can pick apart like cotton and weave into a fabric - it's a flexible material, made out of a rock, which can kill you.

The asbestos formations are ones they keep behind glass.

wolfi1

reminds me of a quote from my favorite band: God thinks in the geniuses, he dreams in the poets and he sleeps in the rest of the people