Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts:

Today's FOTD is not a simple repeat of a scene all fractalists have seen hundreds of times.  It is the exposition of a theme.  The next several FOTD's will be variations on the theme, which is the East Valley elephants.

The valley on the positive X-axis of the Mandelbrot set is known as "East Valley".  It is also known as "Elephant Valley".  The image shows why it has earned the name "Elephant Valley".

The image consists of two steadfast elephants standing guard over their appointed buds.  The buds as well as the elephants are of order-49 and 48, and are found on the southern shore line of East Valley.

East Valley elephants are not nearly as faithful as it appears however, especially when they are viewed only in their Mandelbrot aspect.  A change in the orientation of the view can make them lose track of their buds, or even change into weird animals that resemble giraffes more than elephants.

The name "Elephant Variations" indicates that I will be playing various tricks with the elephants in upcoming FOTD images, seeing how long they can remain faithful to their buds.  I will also check the dismembered and multiple elephants that result when the exponent of Z is changed.

Since there is little new or surprising stuff in today's image, I have given it no rating.  Perhaps the best point of the image is its almost non-existent calculation time of around 10 seconds.

The slow improvement in the weather continued today here at Fractal Central, with mostly sunny skies decorated with a few small cottonpuff clouds, and a temperature of 63F 17C.  The fractal cats approved of the weather conditions, but they did not approve of the stray feral cats wandering the neighborhood.

The humans have nothing against cats either domesticated or feral, but are still careful not to leave food lying about outside.  The next FOTD, the first of the series of elephant variations, will be posted in 24 hours.  Until then, take care, and people should be careful to avoid claiming that they know something when actually they only believe it.

Jim Muth
jimmuth@earthlink.net


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