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Tuesday, May. 7, 2024

10:23am EDT

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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

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

September 11, 2020 at 12:02am

#993024

Per Ardua Ad Astra

Whew. I feared today's prompt would be about... well, something else.

Mini-Contest below! You could win a Merit Badge.

PROMPT September 11th

Write about your favorite childhood game or toy.

Teen years count as childhood, right? At least some of them do. I don't remember much about my pre-teen toys or games, though I do know my parents taught me important games like chess, checkers, and poker.

I think I was maybe 12 or 13 when I got my first rocket, a gift from an aunt. It was a cardboard and plastic thing with a Star Trek theme (I told you I've always been a fan), and, most importantly for Kid Me, you could put a solid-fuel engine into the thing and launch the sucker into the trees.

Sure, the tree thing was inadvertent. We had about a ten-acre field, plenty of room for launch and recovery, but somehow, something like 1 out of every 3 launches ended up with me climbing a goddamned tree. This is why I'm not Elon Musk.

The Star Trek-themed rocket was only the first of many. The basic design of most of them was similar: a long cardboard tube, nose cone, fins. Some were even multi-stage. Some had clear plastic payload chambers, and I should raise a memorial to all the beetles, worms, and mice that underwent several Gs of acceleration in the name of science. One even had a camera built into the nose cone -- a 110 mm film camera, as this was long before the days of digital photography. At perigee, the thing would automatically snap a blurry picture of the launch field and use it to determine which tree it would land in.

Most model rockets take some time and various degrees of skill to build. Glue (several types), sandpaper, balsa sealer for the fins, different color paints, decals, that sort of thing. Some were easier to build than others; hell, some of them were extraordinarily complex. Once built and dry, you could shove in an engine, install an electric igniter, hook it up to a battery, and launch it.

I didn't have much else to do in those days, what with living out in the sticks and it being a few years yet before home computers became a thing, so I built well over a hundred rockets.

Some of them are probably still in the trees.

In those several years, though, there was one model that was forever beyond my reach, both in terms of price and, I was sure, complexity of build, and that was the scaled-down Saturn V.

But I have never really lost my love for rocketry, even though, these days, I don't have a place to launch them. It's the building part that intrigues me. Every once in a while, I'll get it in my head to put a rocket together just for the craft of it.

And a few years ago, I finally got my hands on a Saturn V.

Unfortunately, the paint scheme foiled me. The thing's completely built, but for half the paint and the decals. I keep thinking one of these days I'll revisit it, touch up the parts that got fucked up because I'm not so great at masking, and put the decals on. Hell, I wanted to do it for the Apollo 11 50th anniversary, but never seemed to get around to it.

Still sitting there, though. Waiting. One day...

Merit Badge Mini-Contest!

Today is an important day. No, not just because of that, but because it happens to be my 16th anniversary here on Writing.com.

So no prompt for comments today -- just comment below and you might get a badge tomorrow. As usual, deadline is the end of the day today, September 11, WDC time. If you must have a prompt, you could talk about model rockets or how awesome I am, or how awesome my model rockets are even though I don't have any pictures of them up. But really, I just want to encourage comments, so anything goes, today. That's right - it's my birthday, but I'm the one giving a present. (Don't worry if I've given you a Merit Badge in the last couple of weeks; if applicable, I'll remind myself to send it out later for CR credit.)

6 Like • Comment • View 10 comments

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