← Taiji, from first principles
Experiment 02 · The Turning

One breath of the taiji

It begins undivided, blooms into the ten thousand things, and returns to the uncarved field. Watch one breath of it.

無極undivided
drag to turn

No solid is the taiji — the taijitu is a flat sign. Here it is lifted into three dimensions and time as a breathing fluid vortex; the reading of the swirl as rolled-up flow is honest to the fluid dynamics (a sheared interface rolls into exactly this comma), but the 3D form drawn here is our interpretation, labelled as such. The turn carries a whisper of real quiet-standing sway (Santos & Duarte 2016, CC0). Cosmology after Zhou Dunyi (Taijitu shuo) and the Daodejing; symbol form after Lai Zhide's interlocking spirals.

Experiment 02 · interactive · field notes

What is the taiji symbol a flat picture of — and what does it look like lifted into three dimensions and time?

What it shows

No solid is the taiji — the taijitu is a flat sign. Lifted into three dimensions and time, it breathes the whole arc of creation: two currents differentiate out of an undivided field, roll into each other, then unwind and dissolve back. The Dao gives birth to the one; the one to the ten thousand things; and the ten thousand things return to the root. Simple, then complex, then simple again — 反者道之動, reversal is the movement of the Dao.

Method

The swirl is read as rolled-up flow — the shape a sheared fluid interface makes (a Kelvin–Helmholtz billow; the “dot” is the vortex’s still core). That reading is honest to the fluid dynamics; the specific 3D form drawn here is our interpretation, labelled as such. It is rendered as a hand-written raymarcher through a breathing vortex field, and the turn carries a whisper of real quiet-standing sway (Santos & Duarte 2016, CC0). Cosmology after Zhou Dunyi’s Taijitu shuo and the Daodejing; symbol form after Lai Zhide’s interlocking spirals.

Journal

  • 2026-07-18 — First built as a rigid painted sphere. It turned in 3D, but every depth-slice was the same flat symbol — no internal structure. Redirected toward fluid dynamics: the yin-yang comma is the shape a shear layer rolls into. Rebuilt the interior as a raymarched Kelvin–Helmholtz vortex — the honest key the rigid version lacked.

Sources & further reading

  1. Zhou Dunyi. Taijitu shuo (Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate)
  2. Daodejing
  3. Santos & Duarte. A data set with kinematic and ground reaction forces of human balance (2016)