Chalk into Gold
I watch anime. A necessary side effect of this fact is that I have no life, and thus must find other diversions with which to fill my time. One of the series I'm particularly fond of is Fullmetal Alchemist, which involves two young alchemists searching for the Philosopher's Stone. Alchemy is accomplished by manipulating occult-looking diagrams called transmutation circles (錬成陣, or renseijin in Japanese). In the process of trying and failing to work out the text on the series' title screen, one of my internet friends (also an RPI student) somehow got it into my head to try drawing a renseijin in real life, preferably on a large scale. The results are depicted here.
Click on any of the images below for a larger version.
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![[ Transmutation circle ]](renseijin_small.png "Transmutation circle")
Our final design. Like the one seen in Fullmetal Alchemist, this transmutation circle features text from George Ripley's The Compound of Alchymy concerning the Philosopher's Stone. We never were able to make out all the text on the "actual" circle, so in its place this one was designed from scratch in a similar style.
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![[ Early morning, bottom left ]](drawing1_small.jpg "Early morning, bottom left")
Taken soon after completion, before the sun had quite risen—we started work around 0430, and this was taken about two hours later. An insufficient supply of white chalk led to drawing some components in other colors, which actually turned out to look very good (the blue symbols in particular really stand out). Unfortunately, the circumferential text had to be omitted due to time constraints. This photo's fuzziness is due to a combination of low light levels and dying camera batteries.
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![[ Afternoon, left ]](drawing2_small.jpg "Afternoon, left")
![[ Afternoon, upper left ]](drawing3_small.jpg "Afternoon, upper left")
![[ Afternoon, bottom right ]](drawing4_small.jpg "Afternoon, bottom right")
These were taken in the afternoon later that day. Shadows from an ill-placed tree make these photos a little harder to interpret, but the big versions are a lot sharper than the one taken in the morning. We chose a location that would be seen by many people but would be relatively safe from being actually walked on. (For RPIers this is between Amos Eaton and Lally, on the path leading back towards the library.) As far as I know, the circle lasted mostly preserved until the next time it rained.
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![[ Extension cord ]](cord_small.jpg "Extension cord")
Aside from the actual chalk, this is the only implement we used to physically draw the circle: a 5-foot brown extension cord. (This may explain why several of the lines in the figure are, er, somewhat less than geometrically straight.) If you look closely you can still see some residual chalk marks from when we marked off lengths for plotting the triangles.
![[ Transmutation circle ]](renseijin.png "Transmutation circle")
![[ Early morning, bottom left ]](drawing1.jpg "Early morning, bottom left")
![[ Afternoon, left ]](drawing2.jpg "Afternoon, left")
![[ Afternoon, upper left ]](drawing3.jpg "Afternoon, upper left")
![[ Afternoon, bottom right ]](drawing4.jpg "Afternoon, bottom right")
![[ Extension cord ]](cord.jpg "Extension cord")
Credits
KiraCatgirl designed the figure, came up with the notion of drawing it in real life, and provided the motivation (and chalk) we needed to carry through with the plan. I vectorized the design in Illustrator, added the hexagon and text, and scrounged up the extension cord. AngryChicken was indispensible in actually drawing the thing; in hindsight two people almost certainly couldn't have finished it in any reasonable amount of time.
![[ claimID ]](/claimid.png "claimID"){kind=small}