FOTD -- February 28, 2009 (Rating 5.5) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: Friday afternoon FL again asked me why I am so fascinated with fractals. It was a harmless question, but it surely got my philosophical muse active. I replied that I enjoy fractals for the same reason that I would enjoy being an officer or even a crewman on the Starship Enterprise. Since I will never have a chance to explore the unknown of physical outer space, I chose the consolation prize of exploring the unknown virtual world of fractals. Then FL turned a bit wistful and told me it was a shame that I had been born a few centuries too soon. This actually struck me as amusing. I replied that I had not been born too early, that in fact there never would be a right time. In my opinion, Man will never permanently spread his ever-increa- sing numbers to any place but the surface of the earth -- not because we will never have the knowledge or technology, but because we will never have the resources to meet the economic cost. As an example, imagine what would happen if, in today's economic situation, our president were to announce that he had decided to appropriate 10-trillion dollars to establish a permanent U.S. colony on Mars within 10 years. The outrage would be deafening. People would surely claim that having steady jobs and affordable necessities today was far more important than receiving nightly news and weather reports from Mars 10 years from now. The appro- priation bill would die a fast and celebrated death in congress. IMO, if the economy permits, a few men might walk on Mars in 25 years or so, and I might be around to see it. But that is as far as man will go. Our unmanned probes will continue to return interesting data from the other planets and their varied moons. Those probes might even discover extraterrestrial life somewhere else in our solar system. But we must face the harshest fact of all -- we are prisoners of our frail bodies and the life-support- ing environment of earth's surface that permits those bodies to survive. Wherever we hope to go, we must either take a bit of earth's surface conditions with us or create those conditions in our off-earth colonies. Even with any future technology we might develop, the cost of doing this on the scale of the 'Star Trek' TV series would be so overwhelming that it would never be seriously considered. And yes, I do watch those pop-science shows about worm holes on the discovery channels. (Of course, if we could find a way to explore the galaxy with our minds without dragging along our physical bodies, all bets would be off! But I have no idea how we might do this and then bring back valid scientific evidence of what we had observed?) Yes, we do have a fractal for today, a relatively harmless one, a scene in a small valley in the parent fractal that results when various portions of Z^(-1.6) and Z^(-5.8) are combined and (1/C) is added. This parent is an oversized irregular thing with many odd-shaped bays, and nooks and crannies everywhere. Most of the effect was achieved by rendering the image with the outside set to 'tdis' and the inside set to 'fmod' with a proxim- ity value of 0.6. The little bit of effort I put into smoothing the colors earned the extra half-point in the rating of 5.5. I thought of the name "Color Collapse" when I struck the wrong button and lost the first color palette, which was decidedly inferior. The calculation time of just under 7 minutes is true when the image is calculated at a resolution of 640x480x256 on a Pentium-4 machine running at 2000mhz, the resolution at which I calculate all the FOTD images. This time may be cut to nothing by viewing the finished image on the FOTD web site at: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> The heavy clouds and occasional light showers here at Fractal Central on Friday were made quite pleasant by a temperature of 57F 14C, which made it feel more like April than February. The fractal cats never even noticed that no sunlight was coming in their window. A heavy squall passed over at nightfall, but by then the cats had retired to their evening resting p[laces. In my department, the work was heavy, the philosophy on the negative side, and the fractal acceptable. Unless FL comes up with a project on Saturday, I'll post the next FOTD in 24 hours. Until then, take care, and is a realistic but negative view better than a positive view based on wishes? Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START PARAMETER FILE======================================= Color_Collapse { ; time=0:06:56.38-SF5 on P4-2000 reset=2004 type=formula formulafile=basic.frm formulaname=MandAutoCritInZ function=recip passes=1 center-mag=+1.315293015211623/-0.2904341824425853/\ 699884.1/1/162.5/0 params=6/-1.6/0.8/-5.8/0/0/0/0 float=y maxiter=3200 inside=fmod proximity=0.6 outside=tdis periodicity=10 colors=000HLRMOPRRNVULnbYpbWraUpaVnaWl`Xj`Zh`_f_`d\ _abZc`ZdZZeXYfVYhTYiRXjPXkMWmNWkOWhQWeRWcSW`UWYVWW\ XWTYWQZWO`WLaWIcWFcVGbUHaTIaRJ`QK_PL_NMZMOYLPYKQXI\ RWHSWGTVEUUDVUCXTBYS9ZS8_R7`Q5aQ4bP3cO1eO1eN1eM1eM\ 1dL1dK1dJ1cJ1cI1cH1cH1bG1bF1bE0aE2bE5cD8dDBeCEfCHg\ BKhBNiAQjATk9Wm9Wk9Wh9Ve9Vb9V_9UY9UV9TS9TP9TM9SK9S\ H9SE9RB9R88Q5amgaflbZqbZqbYrbXrbWsbVtbUtcTucSucRvc\ QwcPwcOxdNydPvcRscTpbVmbXjaZfa`c`c``eY_gV_iRZkOZmL\ coImqFwtBztBwsCmsDcrEWrFWqGWqHWpIWpJVoKVoLVnMVnMVm\ NUmOUlPUlQUkRUkSTjTTjUTiVTiWShXThXViXWiXYjX_kX`kXb\ lXdmXemXgnXhnXjoXlpXmpXoqXqrXrrXtsXvtXssXpqXmoXjnX\ flXciX`eXYaXUYXRUXORXLOXHMWHKWHIVHHVIIUIJUIKTJLTJM\ SJNSKORKPQKQQLRPLQPLPOMPOMPNKPNKPMOPMSPLTPKRQLTQMU\ QOUQPVQRUQSUQUWQVXQXYQY_Q_aQ`cQaeQcgQdiQfkQgmQioQk\ qQmsRnuSowSpxSrxRpvQmtPjrOhpNeoMbmL_kKYiJVgISfHPdG\ NbFK`EHYDEVEHRFKMGNUUQDIM } frm:MandAutoCritInZ {; Jim Muth a=real(p1), b=imag(p1), d=real(p2), f=imag(p2), g=1/f, h=1/d, j=1/(f-b), z=(((-a*b*g*h)^j)+(p4)), k=real(p3)+1, l=imag(p3)+100, c=fn1(pixel): z=k*((a*(z^b))+(d*(z^f)))+c, |z| < l } END PARAMETER FILE=========================================