FOTD -- July 20, 2009 (Rating 8) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: Possible new formula alert! Today's curious image must take a back seat to an event that happened on this day 40 years ago, when a man first set foot on the moon. Yes, I know the exact date was July 21 in parts of the world, but why quibble? Back then, I was still in my wonder years, perhaps a bit wiser than a few years earlier, but I certainly had not yet realized the power of politics, nor had I reached my present state of cold cynicism. I thought I was lucky enough to have been born at the right time to see mankind actually begin the exploration of the solar system, just like in those stories I was reading and in the shows I was watching on TV. But something went wrong. After a few more dramatic journeys to the moon, the manned exploration of outer space (low earth orbit is not outer space) came to an abrupt end. Instead of expanding our exploration to the planets, we settled on developing a reusable shuttle that could do little more than enter low earth orbit. To ease the disappointment, we were told of all the scientific wonders that the shuttle program would bring, but so far, except for the Hubble telescope when it was finally brought into focus, the scientific wonders have been conspicuous only by their absence. Of course, the shuttle program gave us the international space station, a white elephant if ever there was one. It might bring some minor benefits eventually, though if so, I have yet to hear of them. And I now hear that once the shuttle program ends in a year or so, the space station will be considered junk, and unless Russia wants to take it over, it may be sent to burn up in the atmosphere over the ocean. It now looks like the space station was dreamed up only to justify the expense of the shuttle program by giving it something to do. What a waste of money! True, the dreamers are talking of men going back to the moon and even to Mars in a decade or two. Anyone who thinks this will happen should pay attention to the news. Where will the money come from? The current administration, which is very liberal with spending, can't even find the money for critically-needed health care reform, medicare and social-security, etc. Given the present dire economic conditions, what would voters think of spending trillions of additional dollars on a space exploration program? The answer is, 'don't even think of it'. I was not born too early to see mankind explore and colonize space, the sorry truth is that it will never happen, not in our lifetimes nor in the lifetimes of our descendants. An organiza- tion of space explorers exploring the galaxy in space ships is a fantasy. It always was a fantasy and always will be a fantasy. Some ideas are even more bizarre. Some say we could reach inter- stellar space by leaving our bodies behind like un-necessary baggage and making the trip with only our minds, which would need no life-support system, nor even a ship. It's too bad that this is also a fantasy. Would we ever spend money and effort trying to separate our minds from our bodies (astral projection) when science tells us that our minds are a function of our brains? And even if it were possible, how could astral explorers prove what they had discovered without people on earth wondering if the discoveries were mere fantasies of the explorers' minds? The things I say are negative and not at all hopeful, but they are fact. And one thing we must never lose is the courage to face the truth even when it is harsh and not what we want to hear. My one glimmer of hope is that some rational thinker will point out an error in my reasoning. Since no one is likely to do this, let's turn our attention to fractals, which don't really exist but can be explored anyway. I named today's image "Julia from the Side" because it's an almost-Julia set of an image created by the DivideBrot series of formulas, with a mixture of Z^101 and Z^2. The DivideJulibrot formula included in the parameter file might be posted for the first time in this FOTD. I'm not sure. The image is just different and curious enough to earn a rating of an 8. And the calculation time of an incredibly short 1-1/2 minutes only helps the rating. But as always, the most enjoyable way to see the finished image is to view it on the FOTD web site at: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> The near-perfect summer weather continued here at Fractal Cen- tral on Sunday, laying to rest any lingering fears about man- made climate change, AKA global warming, at least in this area, though I hear that the fears of warming are rising along with the temperature in Alaska. The high temperature of 81F 27C and blue sky filled with puffy white clouds made Sunday in the FC area seem like a holiday on one of the Hawaiian islands. Never having been to Hawaii, the fractal cats had no comment. My day was fair enough. FL was happy with the antique treasure she found in Benton yesterday -- a victorian lamp shade with lots of fringes. Unless we reach the stars within 24 hours, the next FOTD will be posted then. Until the next time, take care, and nothing negative I might say about space exploration will change the fact that I am certain that precognition does exist. Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START PARAMETER FILE======================================= JuliaFromTheSide { ; time=0:01:29.37-SF5 on P4-2000 reset=2004 type=formula formulafile=basic.frm formulaname=DivideJulibrot passes=1 center-mag=0/0\ /0.5883363/1/-37.5/0 params=89.9999/0/89.9999/0/\ -2.3155315/0/0/0/101/1.5 float=y maxiter=1500 inside=0 symmetry=none periodicity=0 colors=0000Hh3Hf6HdFHbGIbIJaLK`OLaTMcZPceWblbbpibt\ oawq`zs_ztZqaddJjfKigKhhKhjKgkKglKfnKeoKepKdrKdsKc\ tKcsTYraSqiMprGpzBrsGtlKufPw_TyTXzNazGezAiy9kv9mr9\ oo8qk8sh8ud7wa7yY7zV7zPAlJCXDEHCIIBMJAQKAUL9YM8aN7\ eO7hO8eT8cX9aa9ZeAXjAVnATrCVsEWtGYtIZuK_uMavObwQdw\ SexUfxWhyYiz_kzalzbmz`jyZhwXfuWdsUbqS`oRZmPXkNUiMS\ gKQeIOcHMaFK_DIYCGXGHVJITNJSQJQUKPXLN_LMcMKfNIjOHm\ OFqPEtQCwQBvPEvPHvPKuONuOQuOTuOWtNZtNatNdsMgsMjsMm\ sMorNkqNhqNepNaoNZoNWpMVpMVpLUpLUqKUqKTqJTqJSrISrI\ SrHRrHRrHRpKWnN_lPcjSghVkfXod_scawqadlgggmibskYymT\ zoZtudizbgw`ftZepYdmWciUbfSabR`_P_XNZTLYQKXMIWJGVF\ EUCDT9FP8HM8JJ8LG7ND7PA7RBBTBEVBIXCLZCP`CSbDWdDZfD\ bhEejEilElnFppFsrFvqJsqMpqPnqSkpVhpYfp`cpc`pfZqf_q\ f_qf`rf`rf`rfarfasfbsfbsfbsfctfctfdtfdtfdrjiqmnpqs\ otwnpvnmvmjvmgvmdvlaulZukVukSukPujMtjJtiGtiDtiAtjD\ vkGwlIxmLynNznQzoSzpVzqXz } frm:DivideJulibrot {; draws 4-D slices of DivideBrot Julibrots pix=pixel, u=real(pix), v=imag(pix), a=pi*real(p1*0.0055555555555556), b=pi*imag(p1*0.0055555555555556), g=pi*real(p2*0.0055555555555556), d=pi*imag(p2*0.0055555555555556), ca=cos(a), cb=cos(b), sb=sin(b), cg=cos(g), sg=sin(g), cd=cos(d), sd=sin(d), aa=-(real(p5)-2), bb=(imag(p5)+0.00000000000000000000001), p=u*cg*cd-v*(ca*sb*sg*cd+ca*cb*sd), q=u*cg*sd+v*(ca*cb*cd-ca*sb*sg*sd), r=u*sg+v*ca*sb*cg, s=v*sin(a), c=p+flip(q)+p3, z=r+flip(s)+p4: z=sqr(z)/(z^(aa)+bb)+c |z|< 1000000 } END PARAMETER FILE=========================================