FOTD -- December 03, 2003 (Rating 6) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: One of the latest fads in physics is the theory of superstrings, or more recently, super multi-dimensional membranes, which twist and turn in an 11-dimensional spacetime, and somehow manifest in our everyday 4-dimensional spacetime as the various sub-atomic particles. This is supposed, or hoped, to be the beginning of the big breakthrough (yet another breakthrough) that will eventually lead to the holy grail -- a theory of everything that makes mathematical sense. Whether such a theory would make common sense is another story. It should be apparent that I hold little hope of this theory being the big one that would explain even physical, much less conscious, existence. I have seen too many breakthroughs come and go during the 40 or so odd years I have been following the latest trends in science. But breakthrough or not, superstrings are real. Today's image has captured a number of them encirc- ling a midget in a different part of the same fractal that held yesterday's image. I named the image "Basic Superstrings" because superstrings and supermembranes are currently looked upon as the most basic sub- atomic entities. The rating of a 6 is becoming boringly common, but it is the fairest rating I could give today's image. The render time of under 2 minutes is about equal to the time required to go on-line and download the completed GIF image from: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> or from: <http://sdboyd.dyndns.org/~sdboyd/fotd/index.html> The temperature on Tuesday here at Fractal Central barely reached 40F 4C, while the winds continued unabated. Even the occasional burst of warm sun was not enough to lure the fractal cats outdoors. They spent another day indoors by their windows, watching the world go by. In the evening, I gave them a treat of tuna to ease their frustration. Now I must shift from fractal mode to work mode. But when the work is finished, I'll shift back into fractal mode. The results of that shift will appear as tomorrow's FOTD. Until then, take care, and stay fractal. Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START 20.0 PAR-FORMULA FILE================================ Basic_Superstrings { ; time=0:01:50.45--SF5 on a P200 reset=2002 type=formula formulafile=allinone.frm formulaname=MandelbrotMix4 function=recip passes=1 center-mag=-1.78010197328101300/-0.143377273422810\ 70/2.749007e+011/1/14.9822749561698103/-0.145702029 params=7.5/-1.75/0.7/-7.5/0/525 float=y maxiter=300 bailout=9 inside=0 logmap=33 periodicity=10 colors=000J0YL3aN7cN9fPDhSFjSJlULqUPsWSuYWxYYz_az_\ czjjzsqzzxzzzzzzzzzzzzzchzFSz0Bz00u01s03q05n07l0Bj\ 0Dh0Ff0Hc0Ja0N_0PY0SW0UU0WS0YD0_00a05U0DN0NF0Y70fB\ 0qL0zW0zf0zm0zm0zm0zm1zm3zm5zm7zm9zmBzmDzmFzmHzmJw\ zLuzNszPqzSozNmzJmzFmzBmz7mzAmzKLzULzcLzmNzmNzmPzm\ PzmPzoLzqHzsDzuLzwUzxazyjzzszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz\ zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzqzzhzza\ zzfzzjzznzzjzzfzzazzYzzUzzPzzLzzHzzDzz9zz5zz1zz0zz\ 0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0z\ z0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0\ zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz\ 0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz1zz3zz5zz7zz9zzBzzDzzFzzHzz7z\ z0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz1zz7zzDzzLzzSzzYzzfzzlzzs\ zzzzzazzFzz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz0zz9zz\ JzzWzzfzzszzzzuzzszznzzlzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzuz\ zszznzzjzzfzzazz_zzPzzLzz } frm:MandelbrotMix4 {; 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, k=real(p3)+1, l=imag(p3)+100, c=fn1(pixel): z=k*((a*(z^b))+(d*(z^f)))+c, |z| < l } END 20.0 PAR-FORMULA FILE==================================