Application in Divination
Dice can be used for divination; using dice for such a purpose is called cleromancy. A pair of common dice is usual, though other forms of polyhedra can be used. Tibetan Buddhists sometimes use this method of divination. It is highly likely that the Pythagoreans used the Platonic solids as dice; they referred to such dice as "the dice of the gods" and they sought to understand the universe through an understanding of geometry in polyhedra.
Astrological dice are a specialized set of three 12-sided dice for divination; the first die represents planets, the Sun, the Moon, and the nodes of the Moon; the second die represents the 12 zodiac signs; and the third represents the 12 houses. An icosahedron provides the answers of the Magic 8-Ball, conventionally used to provide answers to yes-or-no questions.
Read more about this topic: Dice Cup
Famous quotes containing the words application and/or divination:
“Great abilites are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and colouring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“The whole world is an omen and a sign. Why look so wistfully in a corner? Man is the Image of God. Why run after a ghost or a dream? The voice of divination resounds everywhere and runs to waste unheard, unregarded, as the mountains echo with the bleatings of cattle.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)