At 06:24 PM 9/3/03 -0700, John Wilson wrote:

Hey, I didn't *state* that 7-armed spirals were rare! I *asked* if this were so.

My fault. I was rushed. I should have taken time to check exactly what you had said.

Since you were able to produce one on demand, I guess the answer is that they are *not* rare.

A spiral of any number of arms can be produced on demand.

My 7up, however is a much nicer spiral, with another somewhat intriguing feature...I thought. If I back away some distance from my screen, I see that the sub- elements of the slowly spiralling arms form another spiral...a much faster spiral, (shorter pitch).

It's a fine spiral. In no way did I intend to criticize it or the formula that created it.

Something that was discussed in Philofractal back in May and June...I have been surprised by the lack of comment in "Scientific American" regarding the multiple universe article by Max Tegmark. Well a few letters have finally surfaced. It was my own belief that this whole thing was built upon flawed reasoning which led to paradox.

I never saw a paradox. I saw a hypothesis which is so vast as to be almost mystical. It is not surprising that the more rational thinkers would search for flaws in the reasoning.

One reader pointed out an omission in the boundless possibilities suggested by Tegmark...a theism. I guess that this reader is thinking along the same lines that I followed; "Space appears to be infinite in size. If so, then somewhere out there, everything possible becomes real, no matter how improbable it is". Therefore there's a universe somewhere which is built and managed by "God".

In fact, if Tegmark's theory is true, there are an infinity of such universes. In an infinite sub-set of these, the creating God is hidden. In another sub-set, God can be openly seen doing his divine work. And there are an infinity of other universes such as materialists consider ours to be -- accidents that by the unlikeliest of chance came into existence with parameters balanced just right to make the development of conscious intelligent life possible. Since, in our universe, God cannot be seen doing his divine work, our universe must be of the first or last variety. And now the question becomes, what of the multiverse that holds all these infinite universes -- does it have a God who created and is watching over it? If so, that God is also God of the subset universes and their lesser Gods, and even the accidental universes with no lesser Gods still have that greater God in the higher world. God just won't go away. Jim M.