Physicists Michael Faux and Sylvester James Gates and their collaborators have developed "Adinkras" which they describe as a "graphical technology for supersymmetric representation theory". They name this visual technology Adinkrammatics. Their work is in supersymmetry, a field in physics.
I encountered their work in the course of a search on the older classical Adinkra corpus of visual symbols developed by the Gyaman of Cote d'Ivoire and the Akan of Ghana. I came across Faux and Gates paper introducing their symbol system "Adinkras: A Graphical Technology for Supersymmetric Representation Theory" published in Physical Review D, vol. 71, Issue 6, id. 065002( 2004). There, they describe the role of visual imagery in physics and explain their decision to name their system after the Akan/Gayam Adinkra symbol corpus:
"There are important examples in which theoretical physics incorporates elegant motifs to represent mathematical conceptions that are vastly simplified thereby.One such example is the wide-spread use of Feynman diagrams. Another one of these is Salam-Strathdee superspace, a stalwart construction which has proven most helpful in organizing fundamental notions in field theory and in string theory... In this paper, we introduce a graphical paradigm which shows some promise in providing a new symbolic technology for usefully re-conceptualizing problems in supersymmetric representation theory.
The use of symbols to connote ideas which defy simple verbalization is perhaps one of the oldest of human traditions. The Asante people of West Africa have long been accustomed to using simple yet elegant motifs known as Adinkra symbols, to serve just this purpose. With a nod to this tradition, we christen our graphical symbols as "Adinkras."
I deeply admire the visual elegance of their work even though I dont understand most of what it means. I am puzzled, however, by the visual similarities between their work and the older Akan/Gyaman Adinkra system. These similarities emerge from the exact visual identity between one of their symbols and the older Adinkra symbol of Eban and less precise but close similarities between one of their symbols and the Akan/Gyman Adinkra symbol of Epa and inexact but suggestive relationships between another symbol of theirs and the older Adinkra symbol of Nyansapon. I find these similarities puzzling because both Faux and Gates have insisted, in my correspondence with them, that their work is uninfluenced by the older Gyaman/Akan Adinkra system.
A depiction of the visual similarities between the two systems along with the Faux and Gates paper, are attached to this post.
Ever since I came across these similarities between 2007 and 2008, I have had an ambivalent relationship with these correlations even though they fascinate me, inspiring me to explore the possibilities they suggest of dialogue between the ancient and the new systems as well as the mathematical and other cognitive possibilities of classical Adinkra. These explorations of mine are described in my essay on Adinkra in the Oxford Encyclopedia of African Thought edited by Abiola Irele and Biodun Jeyifo.
Seeing a description of the Adinkra symbolism in physics on the Wikipedia site on Adinkra spurred me to post this description of my puzzlement, freeing me from the ambivalence I feel towards these similarities between both systems, and facilitating my emotional freedom to post later my explorations of the mutual illumination between classical and supersymmetric Adinkra.
Thanks
Toyin
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