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Wednesday, May. 1, 2024

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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

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Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

GeminiGem of House Lannister

a day ago
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

Kåre Enga in Udon Thani

Apr 25, 2024 at 3:16am
In response to "Going to the Dogs"

I have ants in Thailand. Will I miss them in Montana? No.

Would it be nice to have a cat and a dog, here or there? Yes, but I have struggles keeping my neglected plants alive.

Not every situation is suitable for everything or everybody.

Kåre Enga in Udon Thani

Apr 25, 2024 at 3:09am
In response to "Tipped Out"

I don't tip. In my travels I rarely find tipping the norm.

I also don't haggle.

When you add the tip... the true cost of America becomes evident. But what would I know? I travel while others who have double my income can't pay rent.

Kåre Enga in Udon Thani

Apr 25, 2024 at 2:58am
In response to "Reality Cubed"

My dreams may be different from your dreams but if we share them with others then some form of the dream may live on. Regardless, if we don't eat we die. "Joy gives us wings." "Reality bites."

Aiva Raine

Apr 24, 2024 at 4:26pm
In response to "Tipped Out"

Agreed. I'll tip and well, for actual waitstaff at restaurants. I'll tip appropriately for bell-staff who assists with luggage at hotels, the more luggage, the bigger the tip. I'll give a tip to the valet as well. Beyond that- I don't tip. Certainly no tip for the fast food workers, coffee baristas, grocery store clerks, etc.

It annoys me to no end that we're being asked to tip for all kinds of jobs where they are being paid an hourly wage. I've worked as a waitress when I was young and my daughter currently does. In those jobs- she absolutely depends upon proper tipping to make a decent wage. And I hate the fact that she is dependent upon tips to do so.

It leaves women especially at the mercy of arsh**() on whether she wants to accept hostile, negative, sexist, harassing, demeaning, and negative behavior from her customers in order to make a living. It condones people treating their waitstaff like shite in order to get paid. While there is much improvement from the 30 years ago when I was working as a waitress in the skimpy outfits we were forced to wear- it's still an issue at non-chain, independent owned restaurants and diners.

Women are left to the mercies of jerk customers and their only recourse is the manager who they have to hope supports their waitstaff rather than the jerk customer. Tipping should be eliminated. All employees should be paid a livable wage and waitstaff especially should not be dependent upon tolerating crappy to obscene behavior from customers in order to make a living.

But, until that happens- I always tip at least 20% and often times more. Very rarely have I tipped lower and the service in those situations was abysmal and they still got 10%.

1 Like

GeminiGem of House Lannister

Apr 23, 2024 at 6:51pm
In response to "Going to the Dogs"

I don't understand the intersection, either. I lived in a much smaller city and found that having dogs was a hassle (although it didn't stop me), what with the complainey neighbors, the extra licensing, etc. I live in a rural location now and it works great. I can't wrap my head around living in NYC with or without a dog, although I like the idea of a place that issues a canine and supplies upon moving there. Can that please be a thing?

1 Like

Lazy Writer est 4/24/2008

Apr 23, 2024 at 3:31pm
In response to "Going to the Dogs"

I love my little dog...but I live in a biggish house with a fenced backyard.

1 Like

November 25, 2018 at 1:19am

#946241

Challenges

As some of you know, my entries this month have been based on prompts in "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"

[13+].

I figured if I'm going to try to write here every day anyway, I might as well go outside my comfort zone a bit and attempt entries based on other peoples' ideas.

When I was a kid, one of the writing exercises I did was to open a book to a semi-random page, grab a phrase or sentence, and expand upon it. This isn't really much different. Sometimes it's easy, and the words just flow. Other times, I have to think about it a bit. The challenge for me is to do something to make it my own - usually by means of comedy.

For a while over the past few years, the only thing I was writing were newsletter editorials, usually 2 per month. I felt like they were using up my entire creative urge, and some months I struggled to find topics. But, as I noted several entries ago, I found it doesn't really work that way, not for me, at any rate. The more I write, the more ideas I get. The more ideas I get, the more I want to write.

I guess the advice you hear is worthwhile: a writer writes. Maybe it doesn't matter that not everything is profoundly deep or funny, as long as you're writing. I should have known, really; I used to be a photographer back in the days before that medium went all-digital, and my trick was always to shoot half a dozen rolls of film in hopes of getting just one good image. And I found, then, that the more I shot, the more frequent the good images became. So yeah, if I'd been thinking straight, I might have concluded that something similar would apply to writing.

Thinking straight isn't always my strong point. But writing helps with that, too.

The hardest part of this challenge, for me, has been to write about things I wouldn't normally give half a shit about. But at least I've found that I can still write about them. This is important, because while it's good to concentrate on the things you care about, it's also good to branch out and learn new things.

If I had it all to do over again, though, the only thing I'd change is throwing in more comedy. Maybe a brick joke, but brick jokes are more funny to the writer than to the reader (a brick joke is the metaphorical equivalent of throwing a brick up in the air at the beginning of a story, and then, at the end of the story, after everyone's quite forgotten about the brick, it conks someone on the head). Or more repeated themes; what could be funnier than if I somehow worked a duck into every entry? Ducks are inherently funny, silly waddling quacking dinosaurs that they are.

Anyway, I've got less than a week left of this, and then it's probably back to (mostly) riffing on crap I find on the internet. I've got a backlog, now. I keep getting targeted with breezy articles about how to increase one's productivity. For some reason, the algorithms-that-be have me pegged as someone who gives a damn about that sort of thing. Spoiler: I'm not. But I have yet to see an article about how to reduce one's productivity, which would be more my speed.

Guess I'll have to write one.

5 Like • Comment • View 4 comments

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