Thursday, January 04, 2007

Mandelbrot Set


This is extremely freaking kewl, and beautiful. Not that I begin to approach understanding the mathematics. The kewl thing is the mathematics is simple enough for me to have some remote clue what it means. Anyway, it's a fractal, and it never stops being complex no matter how far in you zoom. And if you have a good computer, you can zoom *way* in (like 60 billion times, if you start with a typical computer monitor, it's like zooming down to what you are seeing on a typical computer monitor is part of the original image blown up to 20 million kilometers wide). And if you click on the photo, or here, you can see a series of shot of such a zoom. Or click here for the actual wiki article, which has the same series, but with more explanation. This is featured on Wikipedia's featured pictures page, which has some other nice shots on it.

Here's the end of the zoom series at wiki--having zoomed in 60 billion times the original. Remember, it just keeps going.

3 comments:

Megs said...

or, if you have a very SLOW computer, all you see is a large, empty black square, with a very thin greenish line at the top,which MAY develop into some kind of image, if you are willing to wait for a few hours!!!

I love you darling one! Hug you soon!!!!!!! Kiss you soon!! Etc!!!!!!!

me said...

mandelbrot is almond bread in german. mmmm bread.

Megs said...

oooooh! it downloaded whilst i was fraternising next door! that would make a lovely pattern on a pair of trousers!!! paisley 4 eva!