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Monday, Nov. 18, 2024

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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:

tj-turkey-jobble-jobble-hard-J

about 12 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

a day ago
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

JayNaNoOhNo

Nov 8, 2024 at 12:00pm
In response to "Bungalow Bash"

For the love of God, what did I just read? That is by far the worst use case of a bungalow I've ever seen, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the value of front porches—and the size of bungalows.

Was this his point? Nope, I know what his point was. For a guy so worried about presentation, he certainly undercut his own arguement.

1 Like

Turkey DrumStik

Nov 8, 2024 at 9:47am
In response to "Bungalow Bash"

"People don't change their minds on the internet. They usually do that in books, battlefields, or not at all.

Yeah, that's a little bleak."

Bleak and also inaccurate.

1 Like

Kåre เลียม Enga

Nov 7, 2024 at 10:19pm
In response to "Past and Future Intents"

I must live in the present. In the past I daydreamed a lot... probably to escape the bruises of reality; however, I need to be more aware crossing streets or even how I get out of bed (no rapid movements without thinking of consequences).

I can envision a future more peaceful than the present because this time-and-place isn't the only "present" that's ever existed, and I do try to see the larger view (emphasis on 'try').

1 Like

August 18, 2023 at 10:33am

#1054270

Boogie All Night Long

What's worse than a scary story? A scary story that happens to be factual.

11 Terrifying Urban Legends That Turned Out to Be True

Urban legends—those unsubstantiated stories of terror that allow us to use our imaginations to fill in increasingly horrifying details with each retelling—have been with us forever.

Longer than the adjective "urban," even. Or the cities it references.

While the internet has made the dissemination of them easier, humans have been goading one another with spooky anecdotes for centuries.

Yeah, and some of them become actual myths, legends, or religions.

Urban legends often come with a dose of skepticism. (No, a killer with a hook hand has never terrorized necking couples.) But sometimes, these stories turn out to be true.

That's what the hook-hand no-neck conspiracy wants you to think.

As the title suggests, these are supposedly verifiable. No Jersey Devil, no Mothman, no Nessie. I, however, couldn't be arsed to research them, so take it however you want.

1. Rats in the toilet bowl

Never saw a rat there, but I did get attacked by a frightened, wet mouse once. Not where I live now.

And I have seen articles about toilet snakes. And I don't mean the plumbing kind, but the no-legs forked-tongue scaly kind.

2. Cropsey

For years, kids living in and around Staten Island raised goosebumps by relating the tale of “Cropsey,” a boogeyman who lived in the woods and made a nocturnal habit of disemboweling children.

It's important to have a bogeyman to scare your kids into behaving. Well, as much as a kid can behave, anyway. It's generally best if said bogeyman is fictional, though.

Parents no doubt eased their kids’ fears by telling them no such monster existed.

Ha! You overestimate Staten Island parents in the 1970s. "Oh, he totally exists, but he only eats kids that don't do their homework."

Incidentally: "bogeyman" is probably a more proper spelling, but boogeyman, boogieman, bogyman... whatever. The article spells it with two Os. I stick to the official spelling, to help distinguish the kid-scaring villains from the disco-dancing kind. In a nod to equality, the bogeyman can be female, nonbinary, or genderfluid, too.

But he did. In 1987, Andre Rand was put on trial and convicted for a child abduction.

He was probably mad he was named after the worst libertarian ever.

To be sure, this one might be a case of "he killed a couple of kids and the legend grew." Still, the only acceptable number of kids' deaths at the hands of a serial killer is zero—unless, of course, the kids in question don't finish their vegetables.

3. The leaping lawyer

Sooner or later, Toronto residents hear the tale of a lawyer who had a peculiar fondness for running full-bore into his office windows to demonstrate how strong they were.

I'd heard about this one. Maybe from the Darwin Awards? I don't remember.

In a eulogy, managing partner Peter Lauwers called Hoy “one of the best and brightest” at the firm.

Not exactly a persuasive ad for your firm's services. Still, it's at least mildly amusing that there's a lawyer named Lauwers.

4. The body under the bed

Vacationing couples. Newlyweds. Disneyland guests. All have been the subject of an urban legend involving hotel occupants who fall blissfully to sleep, only to wake up to an awful stench coming from either under the bed or inside the mattress.

Gleefully reported by the competing hotels.

While finding a dead person in your room would be legitimately horrifying, disgusting, and weird, things could be worse.

5. The Maine Hermit

For decades, people who vacationed in central Maine’s North Pond area were puzzled by items that would go missing.

The only really horrifying thing about this (dude was certainly strange, and he'd steal shit, but to the best of my knowledge, he never physically harmed anyone) is that Stephen King didn't think of it first.

Skipping a few for brevity's sake.

8. The legend of the bunny man

If you lived in or around Virginia in the 1970s, you were probably exposed to the story of the Bunny Man. In the tale, an escaped mental patient takes to gutting bunnies and hanging them from a bridge underpass.

I'm actually kind of salty that I never heard of this, despite spending my hearing-about-bogeymen years two counties over at about the right time.

Or maybe I did, and I just blocked it out of my head.

9. The legend of Polybius

Vintage video gamers have long traded stories about a coin-operated arcade game circa early 1980s Portland that had strange effects on its players. The game, titled Polybius, was alleged to have prompted feelings of disorientation, amnesia, game addiction, and even suicide.

Here, the article departs from "verified." This isn't even a case of "well, maybe it's true." There's no evidence that this is anything but an actual legend, myth, falsehood, whatever.

Of course, that's what they want you to think.

That one seems to be an outlier here, though. There are a few more at the link. While it's not always true that truth is stranger than fiction, it certainly can hit harder when you realize that the bogeyman is real. Now go clean your room!

3 Like • Comment • View 3 comments

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