XIV: Representation, description, image

 

content

Types and aims of small- and big-scale model

Cave man produced world models and artistic objects

Neolithic models

Ship models

Anatomical models from wax and papier-mâché - and moulages

Use of experimental models

Making vivid invisible phenomena

Sand table exercises

Since 1930 mathematical treatment of economic questions

Since 1944: refinements of  economic models and new models in other sciences

Computer simulation

Scientific visualization is more a representation

Starting from 1960: upswing of research on imagery

Theories of representation

 

 

For art see:

Chap. XVIII: worlds of art & entertainment

 

 

Types and aims of small- and big-scale model

 

see: Fig. 69: Definitions: models as representations

see also in German:

Was ist ein Modell?

 

The most popular use of „model“ in ordinary life as in science is in its function as representation.

This representation can be mental or formal, graphic or material. Some kinds of material representations may be small scale, others can have the same or even a bigger measure.

 

Some aims of using small- or big-scale models can be:

1) to tinker, play, enjoy

2) to gain (heuristics), organize (record) and spread (teach) knowledge

3) to predict behavior

4) to train

5) to substitute, replace, amplify, disburden

6) to inform

7) to cheat

 

 

Creative cave man produced artistic objects

 

Since 30.000 BC there has been such an abundance of artistic objects – paintings and drawings, plastics and adornment – that Margaret W. Conkey (1978; 1997) speaks of an „explosion of symbolic behavior“ (1978), John E. Pfeiffer of a „creative explosion“ (1982) and Antonio Gilman of an „Upper Palaeolithic Revolution“ (1984). Since then the human body especially has been scratched, painted, drawn, formed and embossed – sometimes naturalistic sometimes stylized, as a whole or as just a torso, a head or limbs.

 

A much discussed object are the female statuettes. Are they self-projections, little sancutaries, votive or consecration figures, idols or amulets, fetishes with supernatural power, fertility symbols or pornographic objects? Are they realistic, highlighting obesity or meagerness? Do they show an ideal, an abstraction or a reduction to the essential?

 

see in German (with bibliography):

Modelle: Archäologische Spekulationen - lang

Funde und Befunde zum Frühmenschen

 

 

Neolithic models

 

According to the archeologist Marija Gimbutas (1974) since 6000 BC we have models of houses and temples in Eastern Europe, since 3500 BC we have „shrines“ with little figures and ossuaries (urns). Shrines and ovens, pottery, plastics of all kinds, loam bricks and seals were found in Catal Hüyük (6000 BC).

 

Marija Gimbutas: The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe. London: Thames and Hudson 1982, 70: Clay model of a shrine from Popudnia, western Ukraine. Late Cucuteni, c. mid-fourth millenium BC.

 

 

Henceforth we find affectionately-crafted little models of houses, ships an vehicles, of herds of animals and dyads of animals. Of later periods we find craft scenes – e. g. the grinding or brewing maiden - as funerary objects.

Ground plans of houses, fortresses and city walls can be found after 2800 BC on palettes, jointed dolls after 2000 BC.

 

see in German:

Modelle: Archäologische Spekulationen - kurz

 

 

Ship models

 

Ship models are preserved from the old Mesopotamia (Ur), from Egypt, Greece and Rome (Arvid Goettlicher, Walter Werner, 1971; Arvid Goettlicher, 1978; Paul Forsythe Johnston, 1984).

 

Afterwards we deplore a gap till 1450 (Heinrich Winter, 1956).The Turkish ship museum in Istanbul claims to have 14 models from that century.

A nice study-sketch of a ship close hauled by Leonardo da Vincy has been preserved (Codex Madrid II, fol. 7r, 123v; Ludwig Rank 1984).

 

In 1679 Jean Baptiste Colbert, naval Minister of Ludwig XIV, charged the custodians of all royal naval ports to provide a model of each ship, which they intended to build. His intention was to win by this means a collection of models which should serve as standards for all future ships. Within a short time thousands of ship models were built. Later they get in collections at the French court and around 1800 in a particularly established naval museum.

 

Favored for experimentation have been, after 1600, model ships – first in England, and shortly after in the Netherlands, France and Russia.

 

bibliography:

Schiffsmodelle

 

 

Anatomical models from wax and papier-mâché - and moulages

 

At least since the beginning of the Renaissance, anatomical wax models (Fig. 70) have been shaped. Leonardo da Vinci recorded his method of producing them in his notebooks. These models served to instruct medicine. Around 1650 the first waxworks (cabinets of exhibitions) were established.

 

It is said that the French physiologist Louis Thomas Jérome Auzoux took his inspiration from the childrens' toys sold on the streets of Paris. In 1822, while still a student, he presented his first anatomical model to the Paris Academy of Medicine. Since then he produced hundreds of models of the human body as well as of limbs and organs made by cheap papier-mâché. In addition he produced zoological, veterinary and botanical models. They were uses the whole century.

 

A special kind of medical models are the so-called „moulages“. In his Encyclopaedia Britannica article on models the physicist Ludwig Boltzmann writes:

„In anatomy and physiology, models are specially employed as aids in teaching and study, and the method of moulage or chromoplastic yields excellent impressions of living organisms, and enables anatomical and medical preparations to be copied both in form and colour.“

Since 1800 carefully colored moulages were used primarily to make students of medicine familiar with the physiognomy of diseases of skin and organs (Thomas Schnalke, 1986; 2004).

 

bibliography:

model: special topics – Wachsbildnerei/ medizinische Modelle

 

 

Use of experimental models

 

The use of models for experiments (Fig. 71) began in 1600 with Simon Stevin, Cornelius Drebbel and William Gilbert. A unique theoretical approach to the heuristics of small scale models was provided by the clergyman Simon Sturtevant (Fig. 51). But only in the 19th century the problem was tackled mathematically.

 

 

Making vivid invisible phenomenaa

 

Popular examples of making vivid invisible phenomena were the illustration of magnetic dip in 1581 by the English mariner Robert Norman, the demonstration of the atmospheric pressure by the Italian physicist and mathematician Evangelista Torricelli in 1643 (mercury barometer) and the demonstration of the force of air pressure by the German inventor and politician Otto von Guericke in 1663 (attempts with the Magdeburger hemispheres – for illustrations see John Desmond Bernal, II, 1970, 440-442; Carl Graf von Klickowstroem, 1959, 131; Brian J. Ford, 1992, 121).

 

In 1787 the German physicist Ernst Chladni published a report on the technique to show the various modes of vibration in a mechanical surface: He draw a bow over a piece of metal whose surface is lightly covered with sand.

In 1801 the English physician and physicist Thomas Young published his experiments on the interference of light. He placed a screen with two pin holes in it in front of a point source of light; then a pattern of dark and light bands could be seen on the screen behind the holes. A year later Young described a device for showing interference of water waves ("wave tub").

In 1827 British physicist and inventor Charles Wheatstone introduced his “kaleidophone”, a device for rendering the vibrations of a sounding body apparent to the eye.

 

For “wave machines” in the 19th century see:

chap. XII: Visualization, illustration - 3D-models of physical theories

 

 

Sand table exercises

 

Simulation has its roots in the games of Antiquity.

A special modern form are sandtable exercises (see J. G. Krünitz, 1790; article “Kriegs-Schule”, 1-272, esp. 24ff). In 1780 the mathematician Johann Christian Ludwig Hellwig presented a "Versuch eines aufs Schachspiel gebaueten taktischen Spieles, von zwey und mehrern Personen zu spielen".

In 1824 Baron G. H. R. J. von Reisswitz published his „Anleitung zur Darstellung militärischer Manöver mit dem Apparat des Kriegs-Spieles“, developed since 1800. It is said that the Prussians defeated the French in the Franco-German War 1870/71 because the German officers were trained with the help of this war-game.

One of the classics in the 20th century was the manual on „Sand Table Exercises“ of the English colonel Archibald William Valentine (1931) with 11 editions.

 

bibliography:

model: special topics - Sandkastenspiele

 

 

Since 1930 mathematical treatment of economic questions

 

In an inaugural address delivered at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1933 Friedrich August von Hayek stated, what a modern economist does:

„By combining elementary conclusions and following up their implications he gradually constructs, from the familiar elements, a mental model which aims at reproducing the working of the economic system as a whole”.

 

Important mathematical treatment of economic questions have then been given – besides Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen – among others by John von Neumann (1938; primary 1932), Michal Kalecki (1935), Victor Edelberg (1936; 1936), James E. Meade (1936), John Richard Hicks (1937), Roy F. Harrod (1939) and Paul A. Samuelson (1939). Already in 1938 economists spoke – besides „Keynes’ model“ - of „Kalecki’s model“, and two years later Nicholas Kaldor proposed an extension of it. Therefore Vittorio Marrama could speak in 1946 of the „Kalecki-Kaldor model“.

In 1948/49 William Jack Baumol plucked to pieces the models of Harrod und Samuelson. John Richard Hicks (1949) made the same with Harrods „Dynamic Theory“; Sidney S. Alexander followed in 1949/50. Oddly enough Baumol in consequence did not speak of the Harrod-Samuelson model, but of the Harrod-Domar model (1952).

Already since 1940 has been spoken of the „Hicksian model“, since 1951 of the „Hicksian IS-LM diagram“, since 1963 oft the „Hicks IS-LM“ and since 1968 of the „Hicksian IS-LM model“. In 1962 it has been extended by Robert Mundell and Marcus Fleming.

 

 

Since 1944: refinements of economic models and new models in other sciences

 

After World War II models in econometrics were refined by Leonid Hurwicz, Tjalling C. Koopmans; Lawrence Robert Klein; Robert W. Solow.

New areas were:

·        decision and risk theory (Herbert Alexander Simon, Abraham Wald, Leonard J. Savage; Ward Edwards; Kenneth Joseph Arrow, Robert McDowell Thrall, Clyde H. Coombs)

·        game theory (John von Neumann und Oskar Morgenstern, Melvin Dresher, Martin Shubik) and

·        portfolio theory (Harry M. Markowitz, James Tobin).

A mathematical treatment of learning psychology has been attempted by William Kaye Estes; Robert R. Bush, Frederick Mosteller.

 

Starting with his thesis in 1950 Patrick Suppes has published dozens of contributions concerning models and science in all facets. Anthologies of them appeared in 1979 and 1993.

 

Other pioneers show an international diversity, e g. Ernest Hirschlaff Hutten, Mary Brenda Hesse and Karl Wolfgang Deutsch as well as Evert Willem Beth, John G. Kemeny, Georg Kreisel, Abraham Robinson and Chen Chung Chang.

 

Parallel were attempts to find „mechanical models“ for economic, biological and psychological processes (N. F. Morehouse et al. 1950; O. J. Smith, H. F. Erdley 1951; Arnold Tustin 1953; Donald E. Broadbent 1957). Already in 1957 Rolf Günther critisized this attempt in his thesis: „Das Problem der Analogie zwischen wirtschaftlichen und elektrotechnischen Vorgängen“.

 

bibliography:

Models in economy and econometry

 

 

Computer simulation

 

see:    Fig. 72: Simulation: classical definitions (1964-1996)

            Fig. 73: Kinds of simulation

 

Simulation on computers started 1946 (see: Roger Eckhardt, 1987). Some early publications are by John R. Ragazzini, Robert H. Randall and Frederick A. Russell (1947), T. W. Anderson, Kenneth Joseph Arrow and J. E. Walsh (1949), Michael Metropolis and Stanislaw Ulam (1949), Harry Herbert Goode (1951) and Walter Walery Soroka (1954).

Researchers attempted to introduce mathematical, statistical or stochastical models for a variety of processes.

They spoke of „system simulation“ (W. E. Alberts, 1956), and the American Institute of Industrial Engineers (AIIE) held in 1958 in Baltimore one of the first symposia. In the same year Walter J. Karplus compiled instructions on „Analog Simulation“.

Already in 1960 Donald G. Malcolm submitted a “Bibliography on the use of simulation in management analysis”, containing ca. 165 titles. In his opening paragraph he said:

“Computer simulation, as a problem-solving technique, is now proving to be of increasing value as part of research and design methods directed towards attaining a better understanding and improved control of the operations of complex business and military organizations. In system simulation the computer is typically utilized in problem-solving associated with the specific tasks of designing better systems, understanding the workings of operative systems, and studying man-machine interactions.”

In 1962 Harold Steere Guetzkow edited the first reader on „Simulation in Social Science“ and Knut Bleicher „Simulationsmodelle für unternehmerische Entscheidungen“. In the next year Keith Douglas Tocher described „The Art of Simulation“. The first two overviews were edited in 1968 by Francis F. Martin and John McLeod.

 

Again and yet again it was the think tank of the RAND-Corporation in Santa Monica, founded 1948, which provided important impuses for modeling and simulation. In 1979 Per Holst counted already more than 6000 titles in a bibliography on „Computer Simulation“.

 

The concept of "modelling" appears in the 1950s, on the one hand in the Russian science and engineering (and the East German translations), on the other hand in the English and American one (Eric John Barker 1954; N. L. Irvine, L. Davis 1955; Herbert Alexander Simon 1961; Kenneth M. Sayre, Frederick J. Crosson 1963; Richard F. Reiss 1964; George Jiri Klir, Miroslav Valach 1966; Francis F. Martin 1968).

 

The notion „models of data“ has been introduces ind 1960 by Patrick Suppes at an International Congress in Stanford. In the 1980s arose an inflationary use of the Word „data model“ (e. g. Karl Kurbel, Horst Strunz 1990).

 

bibliography:

Modelling & Simulation (with various links at the top)

 

 

Scientific visualization is more a representation

 

For classical visualization and „images of science“ see chap. XII: visualization, illustration

 

Despite including the word „visualization“ today’s „scientific visualization“ is more a representation in reduced scale then a visualization of a theory or law. Of course it is also a technique for design.

 

Scientific visualization uses computer technology to control massive data sets of observations and simulations. It is a means to analyze, manage and communicate the ideas explicitly and implicitly contained in the data. Graphic modeling is the enabling technology for advanced interaction.

 

Sceintific visualization started in the 1970s with the search of the mathematician Herman Chernoff for a software package that would allow the control of an animated "virtual puppet" which could use affective facial expression to communicate statistical information (see e. g. Herman Chernoff, 1970). In 1987 Donna J. Cox developed the concept of the „Renaissance Team“ to bring together artists, scientists, and technologists to produce images and movies of scientific data (see later e. g.: Computer Graphics, 1993).

In 1989 Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann founded MIRALab as a research laboratory within the Center of Computer Science (CUI) of University of Geneva to study computer graphics and animation. In 1990 her husband Daniel Thalmann was one of the first to edit a number of papers on „Scientific visualization and Graphics Simulation“. In 2004 husband and wife together edited the “Handbook of Virtual Humans” (Nadja Magnenat-Thalmann, Daniel Thalmann, 2004).

 

In 2004 Antonino Porrello sketched a „Theory of the Simulative Models (TMS)“.

 

bibliography:

Philosophie und Theorie von Film - Rundfunk - Fernsehen - Medien

 

 

Starting from 1960: upswing of research on imagery

 

Around 1960 a similar paradox situation arouse as at the beginning of the century. On the one hand the so-called “cognitive” approach in psychology, anthropology (ethnology) and ethologic spread rapidly, on the other hand research pounced on imagery and mental images (e. g. Fig. 49) and got back to the scene metaphor and analogy as well as representation.

 

In the 1960s scholars spoke as in earlier decades of

“imagery” (Silvan Solomon Tomkins, 1962),

“mental maps” (Peter Robin Gould, 1966) and

“mental images” (James Wreford Watson, 1967).

 

Important works on imagery were by Alan Richardson (1969) and Allan Paivio (1971).

 

After 1980 there was no holding them. More than 200 studies on imagery and some on “mental representation” were published from 1990 to 2000. In the year 2000 Michel Denis offered a “state of the art” (2000), and the old masters of linguistic and thinking philosophy Jerry Alan Fodor warned: "The mind doesn't work that way!"

 

 

Theories of representation

 

see: Fig. 74: Theories of representation

        Fig. 75: What represents and/ or describes what? According to John H. Holland et al.: Induction. 1986

 

 

Since 1960 there has been considerable confusion about the use and meaning of the word “representation“, e. g. by William Heriot Watson (1960), Bernard Kaplan (1961) and Hanna Fenichel Pitkin (1967). Later followed Peter Caws (1974), William A. Mason (1976), Stephen E. Palmer (1978) and Jerry Alan Fodor (1979, 1981).

 

It was only in the 1970s that the concept of representation in historical perspective received some attention (Fig. 74). First there was a major symposium of Mediaevists in Cologne (Albert Zimmermann, 1971). Then comprehensive histories of the concept were published by Hasso Hofmann (1974), Adalbert Podlech (1984) and Eckart Scheerer (1992; 1993). It did not, however, find a wide audience.

In the 1980s scholars liked also to speak of „mental representation“ (Joan W. Bresnan, 1982; Jacques Mehler et al., 1982), “mental models” (Dedre Gentner, Albert L. Stevens, 1983; Philip N. Johnson-Laird, 1983) or „knowledge representation” (Jay L. Garfield, 1987).

 

Since then publications and confusions boomed - for an example see Fig. 75

. 

 

Bibliography

representation/ mental representation

imagination, imagery, mental imagery