FOTD -- November 03, 2007 (Rating 5.5) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: In the mail today I received the holiday offering from a popular- ized science book club I belong to. Most of the books offered were of the typical 'learn string theory in a day' variety. But on the back page of the advertising magazine I saw an offer for a $199.00 book titled "The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief", which when ordered for the special club member's price of $124.99 will come wrapped in holiday gift wrapping. It seems to me like some kind of macabre joke, giving someone a book about Atheism for Christmas. It is probably no accident that the book is published by a well-known skeptical organiza- tion that exposes phony psychics and generally debunks claims of the paranormal. Their real agenda is the promotion of Atheistic Rationalism. Hmmmm . . . I wonder if hard-core skeptics believe in the reality of fractals. Anyway, it doesn't matter what skeptics believe, since I am a true-believing born-again believer in fractal reality -- at least a true believer in the reality of pictures of fractals. And to prove my point, I have included the parameter file of a fractal that was created by the formula Z^(1.5)+C. To create the parent fractal I turned to the MandelbrotBC1 formula, which is a more versatile version of the MandelbrotBC2 formula. To add extra interest, I calculated the formula with the function set to 'cotan', rather than the hard-coded 'floor' function of the MandelbrotBC2 formula. The result is a totally different fractal. This new fractal is little more than a shapeless bay surrounded by filaments and chaos. Today's scene is located in a small, narrow, pinched-off valley on the northwest shore line of the shapeless bay. I named the image "Eyes of Taurus" because of the multitude of bulls-eyes scattered throughout the scene. The little minibrot just to the upper right of center adds a point of interest. But despite all this, I could not bring myself to rate the scene any better than a 5.5, and a half-point of this is due to the extra effort I put into the coloring. At least not too much time will be spent calculating the image. The included parameter file runs in 5 minutes. And for those who do not calculate, the finished image is available on the FOTD web site at: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> Only a slight nip in the air kept Friday from reaching total perfection here at Fractal Central. The cloudless skies and high temperature of 55F 13C made any outdoor activity except swimming a pleasure. The fractal cats voiced their agreement as they asked for their tuna. Other than the book offer, my day passed with nothing worth mentioning taking place. The next FOTD will be posted in more or less 24 hours. Until then, take care, and be where it's at. Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START PARAMETER FILE======================================= Eyes_of_Taurus { ; time=0:05:19.89-SF5 on P4-2000 reset=2004 type=formula formulafile=allinone.frm formulaname=MandelbrotBC1 function=cotan passes=1 center-mag=-0.308369929869/+0.572186118653/1002987\ /1/37.5/-5.421888982e-008 params=1.5/0/10/0 float=y maxiter=4000 inside=0 logmap=333 periodicity=10 colors=000iVgpQhlVhh_hddh`ihXnhSymTrhUkcUdZVYUJKFP\ OLVRQ_UWeX`k`epckvfpziuxhrvhotgmqgjofgmfekebhe_fdY\ ddVbcS_cQYbNWbKUbIXZEmWaiaKfg2i`5lV7oOArICtCEsEDsF\ CsHBsIArK9rL8rM7rO6qP5qR4qS3qT2G70gVcbSZZQUVOQRMLN\ JGJHCFF7BD27B08I5qV`kSWfPR`NNWKIQHDLF9FC4A90OmqMil\ LfgJccI_ZGXVFUQDQMCNHAKD9G87D46A0sfjj`abVTUPLMJCDD\ 3z_otXinUchRYbOTYLNSIHMFCGC6A909su8oq8lm8ih7ec7bZ7\ _U7XP6TK6QH6ND6K95G65D25A0_mRXiOUeLSbJPZGNWDKSBHO8\ FL5CH3AE07A05DE5B7O91zs6vn4pi3jd2d_1ZV0TQ0NL0HG0BB\ 0rJUnIRkHPhGNdFKaHIZMGVRDSWBP`9Le6Ij4Fo2Bt08y0PxKN\ pILkGKfEIaCKXAPS8UO6ZO4cP2hK0mG0rB0oL2iMHkRFnWCp`A\ reCtjFvgKxcPzdUzjZzlcynhxpmwrqvoutlusiurguqdupaunZ\ umWulTukQujNulNujMuiLuhLufKueKudJucJuaIu`Iu_HuZHuZ\ IuhXurkuhou_suRwuEzuGzuIzuKyuMxuNwuP`uR`uT`uV`uW`u\ Y`u_`ua`uc`uL`uVjudfuceuceubduxXum`ubduYmuVjuShuPe\ uMcuJauN`uR_uVZuYYuaXueWu } frm:MandelbrotBC1 { ; by several Fractint users e=p1, a=imag(p2)+100 p=real(p2)+PI q=2*PI*fn1(p/(2*PI)) r=real(p2)-q Z=C=Pixel: Z=log(Z) IF(imag(Z)>r) Z=Z+flip(2*PI) ENDIF Z=exp(e*(Z+flip(q)))+C |Z|<a } END PARAMETER FILE=========================================