Monday, November 23, 2009

The Mandelbrot Set



The Mandelbrot set refers to a set of equations that create fractals, the patterns that occur in clouds, coastlines, mountain ranges, brocolli, spiral galaxies.

These two pictures were grabbed from Mandelbulb, a site devoted to three dimensional fractal imagery. These are not images taken from nature, but rather mathematical constructs that closely mimic natural forms. Cool, huh? There are a bunch more at the site I linked to above.



One of the cool things about fractal images is that look pretty much the same no matter what magnification you are looking at. Double the size, triple the size, centuple the size, it all looks similar. Here's a "fly-by" on a three dimensional fractal. I believe the word you are looking for is trippy.



Thanks to the always interesting Bad Astronomy for pointing out the site.

5 comments:

Poetry of Flesh said...

Those are amazing. Jeez.

Thanks for sharing.

ArtSparker said...

Waiting for a Mandelbrot set made of marzipan...Mandelbrot translates as "almond bread" auf Deutsch.

Wanderlust Scarlett said...

THAT is really cool. Love fascinating things like that! It reminded me of Phi, the golden number.
So amazing!!

Here's a site about that: http://goldennumber.net/

Have fun!

Scarlett & Viaggiatore

Clowncar said...

No problem, poet. I could look at them all day.

So are you saying, Artspark, that the whole universe is composed of Almond bread? Is the Hibbs Boson made of almond bread?

Cool site, Scarlett! I remember seeing a Disney cartoon (starring Goofy!) about the golden mean when I was a little kid - it's stuck with me ever since.

Anonymous said...

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