FOTD -- January 17, 2002 (Rating 9) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: I rather enjoyed yesterday's "Elephant Ring" fractal. I enjoyed it so much in fact that I decided to do some more exploring today in a similar but easier to reach area. Instead of a tiny midget far out at the tip of the negative stem of the M-set, I chose the grand midget at -1.75. Deep in this midget's East Valley, I chose a filament, a feature that does not exist in the full M-set, and found a smaller midget on it. When I reached this midget, I chose a filament in its northwest suburbs and zoomed in until I found a much smaller midget, which turned out to be the midget in today's image. The elephants in today's image, like those in yesterday's image, come in well defined rings. The outer ring consists of 16 of them, the next ring inside has 32 elephants. But the third ring holds only 8 features, and these features do not appear to be composed of elephants. The inwardly increasing series has reset itself back to 8. This resetting inspired the name "Resetting Fractal". This resetting happens because the barely-visible midget at the center of today's image does not belong to the midget family of the M-set itself, but rather to the family of a larger midget. Actually, the larger midget belongs to the family of a still larger midget -- the midget at -1.75 on the negative stem of the M-set, and the resetting that is visible in the image is the second such resetting on the way down toward the midget in the image. I decided to rate today's effort at a 9. Yesterday's FOTD rated an 8, and today's is marginally better, which I suppose justifies the rating of a rare and lofty 9. Curiously, the basic logmap=0 coloring method, which gives a band to every single iteration, works best with today's image. I suppose nothing justifies the 2-3/4 hours required on my clunky machine to render the image from the parameter file. (A new FOTD machine, as well as pictures of the dynamic duo of cats, may appear at Fractal Central in the not-too-distant future.) The near-unending wait to see the image can be avoided by giving Scott a chance to do the rendering, and when he is finished, by downloading the image from his web site at: <http://sdboyd.dyndns.org/~sdboyd/fotd/index.html> The second web site, the one run by Paul Lee, still sits idle, and Paul's whereabouts remains a mystery. The weather Wednesday here at Fractal Central was mostly cloudy and chilly, with a high temperature of 43F 6C and enough wind to keep the cats indoors. Actually, the winter so far has been one of the mildest on record, and this makes it even harder for the fractal cats to understand why they can't be comfortable in the outdoors. If we were having the normal temperatures in the 20'sF (around -5C), with snow on the ground, it would be so obviously uncomfortable that the cats would not even think of going outside. As it is, they kind of hold me responsible for their modicum of discomfort. As for me, it's late morning, and I've got a bit of work that needs to be done. The time has come to get started on the job. So until my next appearance, take care, and be ever alert for those new and better fractals. Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START PARAMETER FILE======================================= Resetting_Fractal { ; time=2:49:57.06--SF5 on a P200 reset=2002 type=mandel passes=1 center-mag=-1.7497\ 377493558715265721168/-5.065278269355397330831e-5/\ 1.567589e+021/1/-70/-1.52627910310343395e-012 params=0/0 float=y maxiter=12000 bailout=16 inside=0 colors=000VfSVdOUcMUbJRcIQcHOcFNcEMcDKcBJcAIc8Fd7E\ d6Dd4Bd3Ad28d07d06d0Ai0En0Is0Mw0Qz2Uz2Yz3az3cz3iBz\ jDzjGzjJyjLwjOvjRukTrkWqkZok`nkcmkfknbeqZ_rVVuRQvO\ KyKEzG8zC3z90z90zC0vJ6qPDmWIgbObhVZo_UvfOzmKzrMzsN\ huOivQkwRlySnzUozVpzXrzYszYvz_xzazubzqezkfzfgzbjzY\ kzSmzOozJqzErzAqzEozHnzJmzMkzOjyRiyUgxXfxZewacwcbv\ favi_tkZtn_niaheacabZXcTScOOeJJfDFf9BgBFgDJiGNiHRj\ KVjNZkPbkRfmTjmWnnZrn_vo`qq`kq`frbarbXsbRucMucHvcB\ vb6wa0w`0v_0vZ0v_0va0vc0ve0vg0vh0vi0vj0vk0vl0vm0un\ 2uo7upDuqHurMusRutVuu_uveuwisxgrygrzfqzfqxeoveosen\ pcmncmkbkhbkfajcaj`agbbecbbdcafcZgcXheVieSkfQlfOnf\ KofIpeHrcFsbEsaDr_BpZAoY8nX2lV0kU0nY0pZ0rZ0sZ0v_0w\ _3x_4za7za8zaBzbDzbFzbHzcJzcKzcNzeOzeRyeSteWiaZZYa\ TU_NRZIQYGOXDNWDMVDKUDJTDISDIRDHQDFPDEODDODBPDAQDA\ SDDUDEWDFYDH_EIaFJcGKfIMhKNkNOnOUoP_oRfoSmnTsmVznW\ zapzaoz_nzZlzZkzYizYhzXgz } END PARAMETER FILE=========================================