Sunday sunset 4

On each of the four Sundays in January you’ve seen sunset pictures from the state whose license plates proclaim it the Land of Enchantment. Now that today’s post concludes the series, you’re welcome to look back at the other photographs that have appeared here from June 10, 2017, at Camel Rock, 11 miles north of downtown Santa Fe.

Because the first Sunday sunset picture this month appeared on January 7, and because there are 7 days in a week, all of the January pictures in this sequence came on dates divisible by 7:  7, 14, 21, 28. Speaking of divisibility, if you divide 1 by 7, and then 2 by 7, etc., to convert the fractions to decimals, you’ll find that the sevenths give the following infinitely repeating six-digit cycles:

Do you see the cyclical nature of those decimal expansions, with each one consisting of the same digits in the same order, only starting at a different place in the cycle?

But wait! The columns want some attention, too. Notice that reading down the first column of decimal digits is the same as reading up the fourth column? Likewise for the second and fifth columns, and also for the third and sixth columns.

There’s more that could be said, but for now I’ll let the sun set on these mathematical pleasures and not take you further into seventh heaven.

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman

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Sunday sunset 3

On each of the four Sundays in January you’re seeing sunset pictures from the state whose license plates praise it as the Land of Enchantment. This photograph of a silhouetted dead tree is from June 10, 2017, at Camel Rock, 11 miles north of Santa Fe.

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman

Sunday sunset 2

8:10 PM

On each of the four Sundays in January you’re seeing sunset pictures from the state whose license plates proclaim it the Land of Enchantment.

8:18 PM

These three photographs date back to June 10, 2017, at Camel Rock, 11 miles north of downtown Santa Fe. I don’t notice any overlap between the first two pictures. The third, however, zooms in on an area recognizable near the bottom of the second photograph, so you can see how cloud shapes and colors had changed in five minutes.

8:23 PM

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman

Sunday sunset 1

As it would be hard to find anything more appropriate for a Sunday than a sunset, on the four Sundays in January you’ll be seeing sunset pictures. Today’s are from June 10, 2017, at Camel Rock, 11 miles north of downtown Santa Fe. Speaking of 11, that’s how many minutes elapsed between the first photograph and the second.

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman

Camel Rock

Here’s a view from June 10th showing Camel Rock, a landmark on the main highway some 11 miles north of downtown Santa Fe. When I first visited Camel Rock nearly half a century ago, anyone could walk up to it and even onto it. Now I found the structure ringed by a fence. While I appreciate the protection, the fence made it hard to take pictures because I couldn’t get close enough to stand or sit where I wanted to. Oh well, I did what I could, aided by one of those famous New Mexico sunsets.

Do you see the rocky outline of the camel, complete with a hoodoo for a head and neck? If you’d like a look back at other pareidolic images that have appeared here in 2016 and 2017, click “pareidolia” in the “Tagged with” section at the bottom of this post and scroll down through the results. (There are bound to be instances in older posts as well, but I learned the term pareidolia only last year.)

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

More of the world below

More visual notes from the underground in New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns National Park on June 14th.

It took aeons for an inorganic process, dripping water, to deposit the minerals that built up these intricate formations. Nevertheless, don’t their tops remind you of the branching growth patterns seen in a living organism like broccoli?

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

The world below

750 feet underground in Carlsbad Caverns National Park lie the caverns. When we visited a couple of decades ago we didn’t think that much of them. On June 14th of this year we took the 1.25-mile self-guided walk through what’s called the Big Room and found its formations quite impressive. The caverns haven’t changed in 20 years. It seems we have.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman