ouroboros

=Ouroboros=

toc Read here about the ouroboros, being an ancient symbol of a snake eating its tail, and how it relates to the study of scale.

=Definition= The Ouroboros (or Uroborus) is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. Ouroboros is from Greek oura "tail" and bόros "eating."

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On the surface, it represents circularity, the union of two unexpected opposites, and the action of that union. When Ouroboros represents
 * circularity, it functions simply to illustrate that a line can be curled and two ends joined; that was its function in the dream of Friedrich August Kekulé, discoverer of the benzene ring. In this sense it resembles a dog chasing its tail.
 * self-reflexivity or cyclicality, it depicts an intrinsic link between a process’s end and its beginning, not unlike the myth of the phoenix.
 * the action of a cyclical union, it expresses the paradoxical impossibility of a snake swallowing its tail; the idea of a primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting before any beginning with such force or qualities it cannot be extinguished.

=Usage=

The ouroboros is one way of comprehending the zone of irresolvable behavior that exists at both the macro-scale, where phenomena are too gross to detect, and at the micro-scale, where phenomena are too fine to detect. With this metaphor, the two extremes are united in the sense that a snake can bite its own tail.