Search where?

This Portfolio (cathartes02)

All of Writing.Com

◄ October ► 2022
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31
Archive				RSS

Offsite Blogs

· Waltz Travel Blog

Create New Item

Read & Review

Community

Browse By Type

Browse By Genre

Writing Resources

Tuesday, May. 7, 2024

2:14pm EDT

Members: 945

Guests: 804

Total Online: 1,749

Complex Numbers

by Robert Waltz

Rated: 18+ · Book · Personal · #1196512

Not for the faint of art.

Complex Numbers

A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number.

The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi.

Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary.

Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty.

http://www.ddewey.net/mandelbrot/

Signature for Honorable Mentions in 2018 Quill Awards

A signature for exclusive use of winners at the 2019 Quill Awards

Signature for those who have won a Quill Award at the 2020 Quill Awards

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

🌕 HuntersMoon

May 5, 2024 at 8:50am
In response to "Revisited: "Fail""

Shame on you for making fun of the Hoggs. Being a Virginian, Bob, you should know the reverence that the name Hog inspires recalling the glory days of the Washington Redskins (now the Commanders). The Hogs

1 Like

Charity Marie - <3

May 4, 2024 at 5:42pm
In response to "Overdraft Dodgers"

I have four different accounts and each one has a purpose. Savings, personal debit card, auto draft debit card, and a b8lls account. The bills account is the only one that can overdraft as it's for manual big bills like rent, cell, electric, etc. Stuff that mist be paid. The rest are blocked from overdraft and the savings account has no debit card attached. My bank accounts have been hacked too many times so I keep it this way to protect myself. It is very rare I ever pay an overdraft. I have a money market account for money greater than $10K so it gains interest and isn't touched except emergencies. That is a secure account too.

1 Like

Kåre Enga in Montana

May 3, 2024 at 4:23pm
In response to "It's a Crime"

Thailand versus Montana versus New York versus Costa Rica.

Theft? Not in Thailand! Not a huge concern in Missoula, perhaps in NYC, definitely an issue in Costa Rica.

Violence? Not a huge concern in Thailand. More so in MT, NY and CR (where it wasn't a concern years ago), definitely a problem in Saint Louis and the US in general. El Salvador is known for violence.

Death by vehicle. Not a huge concern in either NY or MT. A rising problem in Costa Rica. Thailand is one of the worst places in the world in this respect.

You may be shot and killed in parts of the US but you're more likely to be run-over in Thailand.

1 Like

Simply Me

May 3, 2024 at 11:58am
In response to "It's a Crime"

I get it. The fear spreading jerks wants us to have an "us vs. them" attitude. The division gives them leverage. (they think)

1 Like

🌕 HuntersMoon

May 2, 2024 at 11:37am
In response to "Butt Of Course"

My wife tried waterskiing once... called it the 100-yard douche.

Talk about retaining water...

2 Like

Elisa the Bunny Stik

May 1, 2024 at 10:53am
In response to "Mad as Hell"

"But if you want to really see how anger is useful, you need to consider how it's used as a tool for manipulation."

This is a line that must be regarded with care. After all, there are people that get angry about the way they are being treated on a large scale and harness that anger to change their circumstances. There is some level of manipulation in this angry but still legitimate flavor of activism. We do have to consider the possibility that this angel's usefulness can have net benefits (such as environmental cleanup and protection; see the Live Canal as an example).

GeminiGem survived GoT

Apr 29, 2024 at 1:53pm
In response to "Supplementary"

Working in health care for a zillion years, I've heard it all. The whole thing about something being natural, therefore it would be good for a person is very, very, very...very prevalent. An internist I worked with had a fantastic comeback to that line of thinking. She would say, "Arsenic is natural, are you going to start taking that?"

1 Like

Lazy Writer est 4/24/2008

Apr 28, 2024 at 2:14pm
In response to "Revisited: "Exercise""

I will be 75 in July. My stepdaughter gave me a bike because I wanted to ride it again. Well, I started off shaky and stayed shaky...then I fell off it...A passing motorist stopped to help me get up...I have NOT been back on that bike and will not ever again.

🌕 HuntersMoon

Apr 28, 2024 at 10:43am
In response to "Revisited: "Exercise""

So, you're saying that now you pedal your ass differently?

Elisa the Bunny Stik

Apr 27, 2024 at 10:33am
In response to "Pleasure and Pain"

it illustrates why it's important to have people from different backgrounds, with different worldviews, working on scientific research.

This right here is why I get rather irritated by people poo-pooing college these days. I feel like that attitude effectively shits on minority populations that may not have strong finances but do possess persistent curiosity and want to learn about various subjects in-depth. In the 90s, these groups were exclusively told to go to trade schools even if they had the aptitude for college education. Nowadays the blanket "Everyone should consider a trade" mantra employs a more subtle (but still abundant) form of discrimination. I'm so over it.

1 Like

October 7, 2022 at 12:03am

#1038776

Daube Glacé

Every time I think I've heard of everything in some category, like clothing or games or food, something comes along to prove me wrong.

This is a good thing.

Entry #4 for "Journalistic Intentions"

[18+]

Southern Classic: Daube Glacé
Daube glacé is a labor-intensive dish, best reserved for special occasions

Labor-intensive? Well, that leaves me out. I have a simple rule: if it takes longer to prepare than it does to eat, it's not worth it.

While country ham and salami are hardly foreign to New Orleans these days, they were rarities in the along the Gulf Coast two centuries ago. “We can’t hang meats outside here. They rot,” says Isaac Toups, who runs the kitchen at Toups’ Meatery. In the years before the advent of refrigeration, locals had to find other ways to keep the pantry stocked.

My father was born in New Orleans before refrigeration was common. Probably explained why he refused to put air conditioning in the house. Doesn't explain why he didn't know any New Orleans recipes.

This no-refrigeration thing plagued brewers, too. They had to get creative to find ways to cool the wort and keep the final product from getting too warm. But that's for another entry.

As Toups tells it, one of the best-known snacks of old New Orleans owes its existence to just those circumstances. “As any chef knows, when you reduce a stock down to a glace, it lasts longer,” he says.

Oh. Yep. Sure. I knew that.

Okay, no I didn't.

Daube is a nourishing beef and vegetable stew with French roots.

Quelle surprise.

When Creole cooks simmered the leftovers into a sliceable, shelf-stable concentrate, they inadvertently created daube glacé, a meaty aspic most often consumed on crackers and mayonnaise-slicked po’boys.

"Inadvertenty?"

Nowadays, many cooks in New Orleans make daube glacé using reliable store-bought gelatin, rather than the gelatins already present in beef stock and in pigs’ feet—an extra ingredient in some vintage recipes.

As an aside, I always feel an unreasonable sense of amusement whenever some vegetarian who didn't know where gelatin comes from finds out where gelatin comes from.

Daube glacé is a labor-intensive dish, best reserved for special occasions. If you’re in New Orleans, you don’t have to make it yourself: Langenstein’s grocery store offers a fine version.

If there's something that takes a long time to do, someone will find a way to commercialize it. Look up the history of ramen sometime. Or maybe I'll do a thing on that at some point.

The rest of the article is the actual recipe. I don't know what it is about online recipes; they always have to write a PhD dissertation before getting to the how-to part. No. Stop that. Post the recipe first and then do the notes. Or at least keep the intro short and to the point. I hate reading a whole book only to find that, as in this case, the recipe is Way Too Much Work to bother with (in this case, though, they did say so up front).

I just have one more thing to say, though: it's fashionable now to make fun of the gelatin mold creations from the middle of the last century. And, to be fair, some of them were absolutely disgusting. But as is often the case, it comes from a place of privilege. Aspics, like the one in the linked article, preserved food in a time before cheap and easy refrigeration. Hell, even the way we make gelatin now is way, way easier. And that's okay. I like easy. Easy is good; work is bad.

My father would probably smack me for saying that, but whatever. I'm still salty that I didn't get to try any Cajun dishes until I left home.

3 Like • Comment • View 4 comments

© Copyright 2024 Robert Waltz (UN: cathartes02 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Robert Waltz has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.

Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/blog/cathartes02/day/10-7-2022