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Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024

11:16pm EST

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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 7 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

November 11, 2023 at 8:49am

#1059300

Snack Time

Courtesy of Cracked, today we show how something built for laziness can get even lazier.

The 5 Laziest Snack-Food Innovations

I'm not knocking lazy, mind you. I'm all for convenience and instant gratification. They're two of the very few upsides of living in a declining civilization. These examples, however, are laziness on the part of the producers.

If you’re a snack company, what better way to rile up the populace than to reveal some sort of never-before-seen orientation of a preferred snack food.

You'd think they'd end up competing with themselves like that.

Sure, you’ve had Reese’s peanut cups for your whole life, but now that they’re shaped, in the vaguest possible way, like a pumpkin, they must be simply irresistible.

Nothing about Reese's cups is irresistible to me. I know this is blasphemy, as they're consistently at the #1 spot of favorite candies, but I don't particularly like them. Maybe if the chocolate were real, and the peanut butter wasn't dry and crumbly, I'd feel differently, but then they'd be expensive and no one else would buy them.

Oreos, now... I've been suckered into new Oreos fillings. Until they produced one that was ambrosia itself, and then discontinued them, at which point they (mostly) lost me as a consumer.

5. Oops! All Berries

I'll admit it: I ate Cap'n Crunch as a kid. It's legitimately the first breakfast cereal I have a memory of consuming. As I was very young, most of it probably ended up on the floor; I don't remember that part, though. And I ate the hell out of its variant with the "berries," but I don't recall craving just the "berries."

This actual product debuted way too late for me to have found out for myself.

I see through you with the ease of un-stained glass. You smelled blood in the water to the tune of sugar-addicted children for whom even the already heavily sugared default Crunch Particles no longer fed their fix. You get to debut a brand-new cereal, and the advertising push that goes along with it, without actually having to invent anything new. You’re just capitalizing on the human fascination of any new offering, and at the same time, hoping we don’t realize this is just a way for you to save on electricity and maintenance costs by giving the robot that combines the Captain Crunch and the Berries one day off a week.

And I don't believe for a second that the company cares about robots' rights.

4. Buncha Crunch

As far as I know, this candy is, despite the name, completely unrelated to Cap'n Crunch cereal... except for, possibly, the sugar content.

When Crunch bars debuted, they chose an unwieldy shape and presentation. A chocolate bar thin enough to be practically allergic to shipping, even before its base architecture was destroyed by a network of weak points in the form of puffed rice.

Worse, it's made by Nestle, which is the Platonic ideal of "evil corporation."

Merely spray chocolate wantonly over a conveyor belt of loose crunch and package them. Then throw them into a cardboard box that they couldn’t be bothered to toss an internal bag into.

Here, I think the author's giving Nestle too much credit. Seems to me they're just packaging their robots' mistakes. Also, still not real chocolate.

3. Corn-Flavored Doritos

Don’t act like some janitor at the Frito-Lay factory accidentally left corn in a toaster and now we’re being treated to a New World of Flavor. Do they truly think we’re no smarter than apes?

As the article notes, these are just tortilla chips, only unhealthier. Want corn chips? Get a hold of Fritos, one of that company's supposed flagship products. Their ingredients list is blissfully short, too: corn, corn oil, and salt. I don't believe in the mantra "if you can't pronounce it, don't eat it," because that encourages ignorance, but having four words of one syllable each can be appealing.

2 Crystal Pepsi

Not sure how this belongs on this list, but to me it's like: "How can we make a Pepsi that's even worse than Pepsi, without making a 'diet' version?"

1. Single-Stuf Oreo

Yes, I mentioned Oreos already, but this is a different issue.

Obviously, the original Oreo is the complete opposite of innovation.

Moreso because they ripped off the original creme-sandwich cookie, Hydrox.

Where my objection lies is in the fact that we cannot let them die the death they should have when their superior successor, the Double Stuf, took the throne.

No.

The Double Stuf is too much. The "creme" is not the best part of the Oreo.

I don’t care what you do with the old ones, market them Diet Oreos for all I care. Which I’m just cynical enough to think would absolutely work.

Stop giving Nabisco ideas. They have enough terrible ones

already.

3 Like • Comment • View 2 comments

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