Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts:

Let the trumpets blare and the banners wave!  I'm back, not quite as good as new, but good enough!  And I bring with me another image that fails to earn a rating.

After a three-day break, today's image concludes the elephant series with a whole herd of the ponderous pachyderms.  The image shows a bud in the East Valley of the Z^13+C Mandeloid, dutifully guarded by the proper number of elephants, which is the exponent of Z, minus one, which equals twelve.

Twelve elephants make a herd, which explains the name "The Whole Herd".  This many elephants appear to be necessary because the elephants have shrunk in size, while the size of their bud has increased.

The twelve guardian elephants are lined along the upper rim of the 12-lobed bud, every elephant slightly different, ranging from the elephant on the far left, with an oversized rump and an undersized trunk, to the elephant on the far right with an undersized rump and an oversized trunk.  The skinny elephants in between have less variation, but no two are identical.

The elephants are hard enough to recognize in today's image, which is of order 13.  In higher order Mandeloids the situation grows even worse, until finally the elephants are swallowed up in the increasing number of oversized minibrots that fill the high-order fractals.

On this sorry note we must finish our interrupted venture into the land of elephants.  On file there are three unlucky elephant fractals that never made it -- elephant tower, 1-1/2 elephants and six elephants.  They are fairly interesting images, but not worth the time required to calculate them.

One day we might venture into the land of seahorses, but tomorrow will not be that day.  It's time for fractal images that are more artistic.

The calculation time of 4-1/2 minutes is a little longer than optimum, but still well within reason.  And the FOTD web sites are always there to make life easier.

Today was notably average for the middle of April, with a temperature of 70F 21C and partly cloudy skies.  The fractal cats appear to have given up on the sun, which is now at too high an angle to strike their shelf in the southwest window.  They spent the day chasing each other up and down the long fractal hallway, apparently having forgotten that they talked with the doctor when they were kittens.

The humans, who both took ill at the same time, wondered where the bug came from, since there is no similar illness in the area.  Regardless, the next FOTD will be posted in 24 hours.  Until then, take care, and do not be deceived by imitations.

Jim Muth
jimmuth@earthlink.net


START PARAMETER FILE=======================================

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frm:MandelbrotN {; Jim Muth
b=p1, z=p2, c=p3+pixel:
z=z^(b)+c,
|z| <= 16 }

END PARAMETER FILE=========================================