FOTD -- February 13, 2003 (Rating 7) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: Today's image is a blow-up of a midget that lies on the filament extending outward from the main valley of yesterday's 'Fido' image. Since this valley forms the eyes of the dog's head, I named the image "In the Dog's Eye". The image is one of the best scenes I have yet found in the fractured fractals with an exponent of Z between 1 and 2. I rated it at an honest 7. Most of the rating is earned by the < tdis > option, which colored the image. The image is unusu- ally detailed, and benefits greatly by being rendered at a high resolution. An unusual feature of today's fractal is the trip out from it back to the surface of its parent. As the outzoom progresses, one attractive fractal scene after another comes into view. Several of these larger scenes could just as well have qualified as today's FOTD, but I chose the deepest one I could safely reach. On my aging Pentium 200mhz machine the parameter file renders in 7 minutes. On a faster machine it will render in less time. But the fastest way of all to see the image is to download it from Paul's FOTD web site at: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> or from Scott's site at: <http://sdboyd.dyndns.org/~sdboyd/fotd/index.html> As I wrote two days ago, when I read the book "Relativity and Common Sense" by Hermann Bondi, I was forced to change the way I thought about the universe at large. No longer could I assume that the laws of the limited part of the world which I observed through my limited senses were valid over the vast range of physical existence. But even though the vast physical universe worked differently than my limited sensory input led me to assume, it was still out there, solid and real, regardless of whether it was being observed, a firm foundation upon which the discipline of science had been built. After fascinating myself with the curiosities of relativity, I turned to quantum mechanics, went to the local library, and read as many books as I could find which I was able to understand. To begin, I found far fewer popularized books of QM. This is because QM is so strange that it is difficult to accurately express in everyday words. I discovered that the tiny microscopic world is far stranger than the vast world of relativity. QM can be fully described only by arcane mathematics, and can be fully grasped only by those who understand the math. I found that there are several interpretations of what the math means, and that the leading interpretation is, (or was at that time), the Copenhagen Interpretation. This interpretation states (as best I could understand it) that at the atomic level there is no reality -- that reality is somehow created when a quantum thing is measured. Now my curiosity was really aroused. The physical world is real, I thought. My senses show me that it is really out there. I can see it and hear it. Even in the dark, when I cannot see or hear things, I know they are still there because I can feel them when I bump into them. And what about things that really happened when no one was there to observe them, such as the formation of earth's moon? It made no sense at all. How can real physical objects be built of electrons, protons and neutrons that are not real? A house cannot be built of imaginary bricks. Either the atoms must be real or the objects must be unreal. Was the science that I admire based on an illusion? And I found other quantum things that seemed absolutely impossible. I found that a single object (if quantum things are objects) can be in more than one place at a single moment of time. I found that quantum information can be transmitted instantaneously over any distance, faster than light, which relativity had just told me was impossible. I found that sub-atomic things can go forward, backward, or even sideways in time. In short, I found that the universe is not only stranger that I imagined, it is stranger than I could possibly imagine. And even more telling, I found that not even the quantum experts know what is going on down there. There are many competing interpretations of QM, with the ultimate goal being to reduce the quantum world to something that resembles our everyday world, where space is filled with real, spatially separated objects, and time flows forward in a straight line. When I realized how weird the world as described by science had become, the world as described by religious mystics, which I had recently decided was imaginary, seemed ordinary by comparison. This realization marked the beginning of the end of my days as a materialistic, Atheistic skeptic. If I continue this thread, it will be only on the philofractal list. Now let's get on to that all-important weather. Sun and cold winds prevailed here at Fractal Central on Wednesday. The sun tried hard, but the snow-covered ground and temperature of 26F -3C were too much for it to overcome. As a result, the fractal cats endured another day of semi-voluntary confinement. The ultimate insult came in the evening, when I discovered the cats' food shelf devoid of tuna. They satisfied themselves with a few slices of left-over turkey that I managed to dredge up. I see work beside me and the clock on the wall overhead ticking all too fast. I had best get busy doing what needs to be done. Until next time, take care, and if nothing is real, what am I. Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START 20.0 PAR-FORMULA FILE================================ In_the_Dogs_Eye { ; time=0:06:55.07--SF5 on a P200 reset=2002 type=formula formulafile=allinone.frm formulaname=MandelbrotBC1 function=floor passes=1 center-mag=+0.06875740844296324/-2.375913184400092\ 00/2.898133e+011/1/-85/0.00235733226356027 inside=0 params=1.5596104695/0/1234/0 float=y maxiter=8000 outside=tdis periodicity=10 mathtolerance=/1 colors=000o`on_lm_jlZgkYdlVnjYbh_SfbGcc0ed5gdAidFj\ eJleOneTpeYqfasffufkvfoucluajtZgtXesUbsS`rQYrNWqLT\ qIRpGOpEMqEHqECuD6qE7nF8kG9gHAdIBaJCYKDVLESMFDAFPM\ FZXG_YF_ZF`_E`_Ea`DaaDbbCbbCccBcdBdeAdeAef9eg9eg9`\ aDXWHSRLOLPEHNKGSQFXWFaaEegEjmDosDsKeUPdUVdU_cUebU\ l`RjbUicWhdYff_egadhcbjeakg`liamgamfamebmcbnbbnacn\ _cnZcoYdoWdoVdoUemSekQfjOfhMggKgeIhdGhbFh`Di_BiY9j\ X7jV5kU3kS1kR0dS4ZT8SUCMUFKVHJWIHWJGXLEXMDYNBYOAZQ\ 8ZR7_S3aU6_T9YTBWSEVSHTRJRRMPQPOQRMPUKPXIO_EPZHOYK\ OYNOXPOWSOWVNVXNV_NUbNTdNTgMSjMRlMRoMQrMUyPQtMNoKK\ jHHeFE`CBWA8R75M52I34M85QC6TG7XK9`OAcSBgXCk`EndFrh\ GvlHypJuiKrcLnXMkRNgKOdERf2Pa8OYDMUILQNJLTIHYGDbF9\ gE5lQDXaLHuZ2lS1cM0WG0UH2TI4SJ5RK7QL8PMAONBNODMPEL\ QGKRHJSJITKHUMMZBGUNCMdBQZATT9WN6WK8ZIAaGCcFEfDGhC\ IkAKm9Mp7Nr6PeKRTYTGkV3xX6wY8w_Aw`CwbFwcHveJvfLvgO\ viQvjSulUumXuoZup`uqbupar } 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 20.0 PAR-FORMULA FILE==================================