Search where?

This Portfolio (cathartes02)

All of Writing.Com

◄ April ► 2023
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30
Archive				RSS

Offsite Blogs

· Waltz Travel Blog

Create New Item

Read & Review

Community

Browse By Type

Browse By Genre

Writing Resources

Monday, Nov. 18, 2024

1:42pm EST

Members: 889

Guests: 1,868

Total Online: 2,757

Complex Numbers

by Robert Waltz

Rated: 18+ · Book · Personal · #1196512

Not for the faint of art.

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.

http://www.ddewey.net/mandelbrot/

Signature for Honorable Mentions in 2018 Quill Awards

A signature for exclusive use of winners at the 2019 Quill Awards

Signature for those who have won a Quill Award at the 2020 Quill Awards

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Wordsmitty ✍️

about an hour ago
In response to "Losing Weight Is Easy"

This brings up the old question of whether your weight changes when you inhale a helium balloon to make your voice higher.

Maybe this has to do with the difference of a mug of beer vs a tankard of ale.

The universe has so many weighty/massive questions.

1 Like

Brandiwyn🎶

about 2 hours ago
In response to "That's the Spirit"

Maybe you’d go with “Thunder” because that one’s so terrible that only divine intervention can explain its success. Wow. Missed opportunity, here. How could you let this go without a shoutout to mighty Thor, son of the Allfather, wielder of Mjolnir, He with the Long Forehead? (Said in the voice of the Soup Nazi): "No Valhalla for YOU!"

Brandiwyn🎶

about 2 hours ago
In response to "Losing Weight Is Easy"

Has anyone ever told you how annoyingly pedantic you are?

Damn your pedantic ways. I was hoping to justify a vacation to Venus (which I still argue would be a much better holiday destination than fr-fr-freezing Mars, Elon. Ugh.) Now I guess I'll have to settle for the Cancun plans we already made, since my mass (and waist diameter, and thigh diameter) will be exactly the same regardless.

1 Like

tj-turkey-jobble-jobble-hard-J

about 22 hours ago
In response to "Revisited: "A Frank Discussion""

I became disgruntled with meat sold in local grocery stores; half the weight is water, the taste is bland, and it's "use by" date is usually one day away. I found a small town butcher/locker plant that sells locally raised meats and buy in bulk so it's actually fresher, cheaper, and better tasting. Recently, I decided to try my hand at making our own sausage as well. It's a bit of work, but I think it's worth the trouble.

1 Like

Turkey DrumStik

Nov 16, 2024 at 9:24am
In response to "Barley There"

And approximately 15 seconds later, someone's going to screech about genetically engineered crops.

That would be me...screeching for more genetically engineered crops.

Write_Mikey_Write!

Nov 14, 2024 at 2:04pm
In response to "Global Domination"

A little girl wearing a Hello Kitty shirt in Middle-of-Nowhere, Siberia will certainly make you wonder how it got there. My grandson has a souvenir t-shirt with a Terex 33-19 "Titan" on it. When it was built in 1973, the Titan was the largest, highest payload capacity truck ever built, a title it held for 25 years. The thing is, the truck on that t-shirt is on display in Sparwood, BC, Canada - over 1000 miles from here, and his mom got the shirt at a local thrift store. Makes me wonder.

Oh, yeah - I thought 'Schrödinger's Hello Kitty' was funny, too.

1 Like

Adherennium Plotting something

Nov 14, 2024 at 12:10pm
In response to "Global Domination"

For whatever warped reason, 'Schrödinger's Hello Kitty' has tickled my funny bone.

3 Like

Brandiwyn🎶

Nov 12, 2024 at 10:50am
In response to "Blond Man's Bluff"

That's interesting about the two spellings of blonde. I always thought blonde referred to the person and blond referred to the hair. But I never bothered to look it up, So you've catered to my lazy today.

3 Like

Kåre เลียม Enga

Nov 9, 2024 at 1:02pm
In response to "It Was a Dark and Starry Night"

Ah... but why did he see those swirls when many of us don't? A totally different discussion... out of thin air... which is a frozen fog today when I gaze out the window.

Humans have great skills of observation; some of us extraordinary skills. Is The Scream depictive or evocative? 😱

Turkey DrumStik

Nov 9, 2024 at 11:04am
In response to "It Was a Dark and Starry Night"

Frankly, I'm more surprised to see reasonably good reporting from CNN. I'd given up on their ability to rein in their tendency toward loaded speech.

2 Like

April 10, 2023 at 10:29am

#1047949

Hem

Today's entry for "Journalistic Intentions"

[18+] is about something that I never notice until it fails.

Hem

This word has a few definitions, but since the overall theme of this month's JI is clothing, I'm going to assume it's not referring to a makeshift fence or one of the sounds of indecision (along with "haw," which also pairs well with "hee.")

A while back, some bored scientists decided to program a computer to trace the evolution of language (specifically English, because these were UK scientists) backwards and forwards, both predicting where it might go from here, and delving deep into times from which few written records survive.

This, of course, was reported in various outlets as "Scientists discover oldest words in English!!!" Which is sensationalist and misleading as all fuck. There's an press release on it here,

but it only gets more sensationalized the further you get from the source.

If you can't be arsed to click, their candidates for Oldest Word in English are I, we, who, one, two, and three.

As these words supposedly predate English, and long predate Modern English, it's a matter of definition to call them the oldest words in the language. And a while back, I did a blog entry on the word "lox," which they think hasn't changed in 8000 years. Here's the blog entry; unfortunately, the link is already broken: "Lox Pie"

. I did, however, find an updated link

to the original article, or at least some version thereof.

So, what's all this hemming and hawing about? Well, in the course of researching this entry, I discovered that the word "hem," as used in fashion, dates at least from the 12th century C.E.,

and possibly from even earlier. Which makes it about 1/10th as old as "lox," but also puts it firmly into a time when some form of English was being used.

This wasn't, presumably, figured out by a computer that may or may not have been programmed correctly, but from what sparse written records survive. I can't be sure about that, but I would believe that "hem" is quite old, because, in general, shorter words live longer, and the idea of hemming a cloth garment is not something that's changed over time (though obviously, the technology to do it has).

One hems a garment to adjust its size, but the primary practical use is to keep a cut edge of cloth from fraying. Like a splice on the end of a rope, only in two dimensions.

So when it comes to discovering the origins of words, there's no need to be a-frayed.

8 Like • Comment • View 3 comments

© Copyright 2024 Robert Waltz (UN: cathartes02 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Robert Waltz has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.

Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/profile/blog/cathartes02/day/4-10-2023