Chamfers

The address of this blog is "Chamfers" being notches or cuts:
1) as a verb "to chamfer" is to cut of the edge or corner of two surfaces; to bevel. Also to cut a groove in to a surface or fluting.
2) as a noun a "chamfer" is the flat surface made by cutting off the edge where two surfaces meet, as in rounding the edges of a block of wood, or the process of whittling. It is also the furrow or groove as in a picture rail or Greek column.
3) the notion of variation of angle and depth of such a cut in patterns. Notches to record a count or decorative edging as in wooden furniture.

The word is apparently a back-formation from the Middle French "chamfrein" derived from "cant or chant" (Latin canthus) meaning "edge" and "frangere" to break. This construction is appropriate for my purposes. We get the word decant from similar roots with the idea being separation over an edge of small parts from suspended or sedimentary fluid medium.

The syllable cant was used in reference to the iron rim or tire of a wheel. Online etymology suggests derivation from the Celtic (as Welsh and Breton cant) with the Old North French meaning "corner" perhaps from German or Dutch origins as kante. Compared to the Greek kanthos meaning the "corner of the eye" there is a subtle shift in meaning to the edge of the circle of the eye and the separation between the seen and the unseen. The proposed Proto-indoeuropean root is kemb "to bend, turn, change" and kam-bo "corner or bend".

A related word is "Camber" meaning:
1) a slight convexity, arching or curvature allowing liquid to flow off e.g. a road, car bonnet
2) the slope of a curved road intended to minimize the centrifugal effect of inertia
3) upward concavity in the underside of a beam, girder or arch
4) the slight alignment of a vehicles wheels away from parallel
5) the curvature of an aerofoil

These are all references to the gentle sloping or vaulting of the sky, the roof, the ceiling, the earth. They share roots with the French "chambre", English "chamber" and "camera" as in the vaulted Camera Obscura.

This gently curving edge is the tendency for things to be as they are through change. The vault of the roof keeps the room stable in changing weather, while the vault of the sky and the stars also stays the same. The iron wheel tire maintains the integrity of the wheel, keeping it whole and keeping the vehicle travelling straight, while the turns and corners of the journey hold us fast to our destination.

The sound "com-" from the archaic Latin "com" (Latin cum) means "with". The proposed Proto-indoeuropean root kom- meaning "beside, near, by, with". It reduces to "co-" because it is such a fundamental concept in language. Even ancient writers were aware that the changing of one thing into another gradually over time is an exchange. The one loses while the other gains, we eat food, pour water on soil and the water is absorbed and seeds sprout. The roots of "combine" are Latin "combinare" or with two. The "bi" sound is a formless syllable denoting doubleness as a count, separation, multiplication, split depending on the context it is placed in. It is derived from the earlier Old Latin dvi- similar to Sanskrit, the Greek di- and Old English twi- from the notional Proto-indoeuropean root dwo.

Another interestingly related word is "comb" meaning a "toothed object". It is preserved as West Germanic kambaz, Old Saxon and High German camb, Old Norse kambr, with German Kamm and Dutch Kam from  Proto-indoeuropean root gombhos or gembh- meaning "to bite, gnaw through, or a tooth". Here the roots of "combination" are the action of repeating combing causing a separation and ordering of some hair or perhaps wool in textiles. This would seem opposite until we look at the sounds and see the hair and the teeth as the gently curving edge of change becoming as it is.

So change is derived from "recompense, reciprocation", Old French changier meaning "to alter, exchange or switch". Latin cambire "barter" from Proto-indoeuropean root kemb "to bend, turn, change" again the same root as an Iron tire rim. So here is some sense of a law of balance and underlying order in these sounds. Turns being taken in trade are like the turns in "game" play and the rules followed to create from nothing a game. Also the roots are clear in "gambling". We call someone "bent or crooked" if they cheat, or are trying to charge over the odds in a business deal. The odds, or the arguments to justify a price, are a consensus emergent pattern generated by rules and physics.

So the chamfers I refer to are an abstract idea. The notion of a stationary point where opposites and changes conspire to remain the same and changing. Consider a raindrop as a stable system, from seed to ground it is a notch in a field of condensing vapour, which in gathering becomes able to maintain itself to such a degree that it falls and actually physically impacts the ground. The ground erodes, each drop carries minerals, perhaps the water is absorbed. The action forms channels we call rivers and streams, but you can never cross the same river because it is the form of the river banks we see and the water is long gone. Even the meanders of the river will change and writhe over low lying areas as the power of the water moves the land itself.

Thus chamfers have it in their nature to join and separate, to dwindle and to identify to supplement one another, amplifying to form the channel of action of those chamfers. Such a channel is by its nature a transition, a reciprocal exchange and itself a chamfer. The channel itself is simply a notch as a raindrop, each stream and the whole river. It is more than obvious that the river is made from streams from water runoff from the land of raindrops from condensed vapour in clouds blown around by winds evaporated from seas, all molecules in electric and gravitational fields made of Chromodynamic fields in gluon soup forming waveguides for energy to generate harmonic dimensionally stable states of change which remain basically constant. However, we have not identified the chamfers.

Because we have not identified the chamfers we are forced to pick a random scale for anything we do, which we then standardise by consensus just as the chamfers do. All forms of measurement and standardisation are meaningless as they are changing, so while the chamfers remain the same in the state of change our measurement of them is staying the same and drifts reciprocally to the change meaning ultimately we measure different quantities as the same when they are quite distinct.