"It's just a circle"

My friend states as we stare at the white board together. We spend a lot of time in the grad student lounge, mainly due to our own individual interests. The white board is a collection of doodles, equations, and thoughts from the last few months. None of that matters to us, as we stare at the circle I just drew on the white board. 

"What does the circle have to do with any of this?" is how my friend responds. He's not frustrated, just genuinely confused at how I decide to describe the fundamental concepts of Electrical Engineering... with a circle. 

"Well, its a drawing. It's like art," I say, much to his dismay. I see the look on his face, and realize I now have to explain myself.

My friend isn't an art guy. Not because he can't do art, or doesn't like art. My friend isn't an "art guy" not because his thought process is much more logical, mathematical, reasonable. He's someone that can talk about math theories that go over my head any day of the week. No, my friend isn't an art guy because he didn't pick the degree to draw symbols that represent complex electrical phenomena. He picked the degree because the math was interesting. 

I picked the degree because I thought circuit design was cool. 

"Okay so think of it this way," I say as I take out a sheet of paper, and start to draw a small circle. "The circle is a simple shape. Just like other simple shapes, you can draw them any way you want. You can draw them together, and create bigger, more complex shapes than the ones you started with". I start drawing his face with simple shapes, then move on to his sweater. 

"We build off the smaller things to make the bigger things, the larger piece of art that we're trying to create. You don't start off adding the details first, you start off with the basic shapes, then slowly add the detail to that". I've moved on to drawing his hair, his facial features, the folds of fabric. It doesn't take me that long to finish the basic sketch of my friend. 

"It's the same thing humans have been doing for thousands of years. Using basic shapes to create art, to describe their world in pictures". I finish the drawing of my friend, and realize it's missing his hair color.

My friend is intrigued by my words, but not as easily convinced. At least, not yet. But after a few moments of thinking...

"So, we can use this circle to represent a ratio. We can notice patterns with that ratio and can represent that as a graph". My friend then starts to draw a graph of sine and cosign on the whiteboard. "That graph can then be used to find new patterns that weren't as obvious when just using the circle. Those patterns are quantified by equations that describe those behaviors".

"The circle was the base, and we just built on top of the circle," I say, confirming his words.

It's all just a circle.