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 |    Not for the faint of art. |
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Complex Numbers A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number. The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi. Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary. Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty. ![Merit Badge in Quill Award
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2022 Quill Award - Best Blog - [Link To Item #1196512] . Congratulations!!!](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/group-Quill_Award_2-1375927_6.gif) ![Merit Badge in 30DBC Winner
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Congratulations on winning an honorable mention for Best Blog at the 2018 Quill Awards for [Link To Item #1196512] . *^*Smile*^* This award was sponsored by the blogging consortium including [Link To Item #30dbc] , [Link To Item #blogcity] , [Link To Item #bcof] and [Link To Item #1953629] . For more details, see [Link To Item #quills] .](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/type-Blogging-2180.gif) ![Merit Badge in Highly Recommended
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I highly recommend your blog.](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/Kudos-Highly_Recommended.gif) ![Merit Badge in Opinion
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For your awesome Klingon Bloodwine recipe from [Link to Book Entry #1016079] that deserves to be on the topmost shelf at Quark's.](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/group-Quarks_Bar-2046190_12.gif)       |
| For my last link of 2025 (I expect to do a personal update tomorrow, New Year's Eve), we have a 2.5 year old article from a source I don't think I've linked before, Planetocracy. I don't know anything about the site besides this one article. Judging by the spelling in the headline, this author isn't from the US. Which is fine; it's good to have non-US perspectives on space. When people who are either uninterested in space colonisation, or actively opposed to it, comment on the prospects of travelling to Mars they often make the same or very similar arguments, unaware that these arguments were either ill-formed to begin with or have already been convincingly refuted. On the flip side, Kelly and Zach Weinersmith wrote some compelling arguments against it in a book that, if I recall correctly, came out after this article. I don't usually mention books directly here, but I'll make an exception: A City on Mars  (Amazon link)“Humans can’t live on Mars because it lacks a magnetic field” Remember, that's an argument the author claims is refuted. But on the basis of this article alone, I'm not convinced. The lack of such a field on Mars is by no means a showstopper for colonisation, however. The main protection we have from cosmic rays on the surface of Earth is not our magnetic field, it is our atmosphere. Okay, and Mars has a much thinner atmosphere. On the plus side, it's further away from the source of most radiation, the Sun. But it seems to me that building habs underground (using robot diggers to start with) would mitigate a lot of the radiation hazard. Replenishing Mars’ atmosphere, if necessary, would thus be fairly trivial. Even with the math leading up to it, I find that statement questionable. “Humans can’t live on Mars because terraforming is impossible/impractical/takes too long” I'd hesitate to agree with "impossible," because engineers can be pretty smart, and technology continues to advance. I don't think we could do it right now, though. Hell, we can't even terraform Terra. “Humans can’t live on Mars because they have to live underground and would go crazy” I'd think a lot of that depends on available space and other factors. “Humans can’t live on Mars because perchlorate in the soil will poison them” That, however, has an engineering solution, so I don't think it'd be a dealbreaker. There's much more at the link. Mind you, I'm not advocating for the author's position, or for its opposite; I don't have the information needed to support or refute these arguments by myself. If we really wanted to colonize—as opposed to visiting or doing short-term stints on— Mars, most of these are problems with engineering solutions. The question, then, is going to be: is it worth it? And I don't just mean monetary return, but also scientific and engineering advances. Unless we find life (by which I mean microbial life or its equivalent) there, only two reasons to do it that stand out to me: 1) as a stepping-stone to asteroid mining; and 2) as a hedge for the human race against Earth catastrophe. Right now, I don't think we're anywhere close to making either of those things practical. Even if we did find life there, I don't think it would require a permanent colony to study. There is, however, one compelling reason to do what we need to do to make it happen, which is: because it's there. The one argument against it that I see most often is some variant of "why spend money on space when we need it to fix things down here," which I find disingenuous. It's not like we're "throwing money into space." It's like the proponents of that argument think we just bundle a bunch of bills into the payload of a rocket and shoot it into the Sun (which, by the way, would take a lot more money than sending it to Mars would). All that money goes back into the economy, creating jobs and helping to develop new technologies. Besides, we could fix things down here, even with an active space program. But we don't. |
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