Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts:

Today's image gives a hint of the potential of the new 4-D formula, which might or might not eventually live up to expectations.

Sometimes when working with fractals the fractalist gets what he expects; at other times he is totally surprised.  Today's image is one of the total surprises.

The scene lies in the area of the large minibrot on the main spike of the oversized and corrupted parent Mandelbrot set.  The exact area is on the filament extending from the large north bud of the minibrot, near the not-quite-reachable point where the filament appears to suddenly narrow to a hairline.

The parent Mandelbrot set has been corrupted by Z^(101) energies and enlarged 100 times, so that the corruption is invisible on the surface, though it lurks very near visibility.  The angle of the slice is so remote in hyperspace that even a hyper-human would have trouble visualizing it.

The big surprise lies in the large circular object on the lightning streak that slashes across the screen.  Never would any sensible fractalist, (if any such an animal exists), expect something like this in a fractal that on its surface is a large Mandelbrot set, regardless of how corrupted the set may be in its depths.

The name "Ball Lightning" was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the scene, though I am not sure that the electrically-charged plasma phenomenon known as ball lightning has yet been fully accepted in respectable conservative scientific circles.

The rating of an 8? indicates that, even though I think the image is pretty good, I am not sure the wider fractal world will think the same.

At any rate, the calculation time of a speedy 20 seconds will keep the potential for disappointment at a minimum.

The day began with clouds and light rain here at Fractal Central.  The clouds broke by midday, leading to a partly cloudy, windy afternoon with a temperature of 50F 10C.  The fractal cats were annoyed by the on-and-off sunshine, and finally found comfort by the heat, which, due to the mild conditions, was off more than on.

The humans, FL and I had a day of routine activity.  The next FOTD is scheduled to be posted in 24 hours.  But tomorrow is Saturday, and expeditions of various kinds have a way of arising unexpectedly on Saturdays, so there is no guarantee that it will appear on time.  Until whenever, take care, and if nothing is real, why then are we so concerned about reality?

Jim Muth
jimmuth@earthlink.net


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

Ball_Lightning     { ; time=0:00:20.00 SF5 at 2000MHZ
  reset=2004 type=formula formulafile=basicer.frm
  formulaname=SliceJulibrot6 function=recip float=y
  center-mag=+0.00000917557400528/-0.000001258744925\
  68/164353.8/0.1224/-3.54874019539208074/82.1269061\
  434486645 params=101/100/-105/-170/-150/-1.74/-176\
  .0253402394/2.0506999724/-176.0253402394/2.0506999\
  724 maxiter=3200 inside=0 logmap=51 periodicity=6
  colors=00080_80_80Z90Y90X90W90V90U90T80S70R60Q50P4\
  0O30N20M10K00I00G40E80CC0AG0FK0KO0PS0UW0Z_0cc0hg0m\
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  wcXveUugQuhNtjKtkHsmEroBrp8qr5qsXSwx3zw8swClvHevLZ\
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  ghCffCfcCf`DeZDeWEdTEdREdR9eN7bJ6_G5XC3V92S51P20Na\
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  1fbUlcWddYYeZQf`JgaCVeRIhe5ks5mm5ng5oa5pW5qQ5rLApM\
  FoNJmOOlPTjQXiQlhLZQTYSRXUQWWOVXNUZLT`KSbIScHMZKfD\
  sgCpgCmhBjhBgiAdiAaiA_jFX }

frm:SliceJulibrot6   {; draws all slices of Julibrot
  pix=pixel, u=real(pix), v=imag(pix),
  a=pi*real(p2*0.0055555555555556),
  b=pi*imag(p2*0.0055555555555556),
  g=pi*real(p3*0.0055555555555556),
  d=pi*imag(p3*0.0055555555555556),
  ca=cos(a), cb=cos(b), sb=sin(b), cg=cos(g),
  sg=sin(g), cd=cos(d), sd=sin(d),
  p=u*cg*cd-v*(ca*sb*sg*cd+ca*cb*sd),
  q=u*cg*sd+v*(ca*cb*cd-ca*sb*sg*sd),
  r=u*sg+v*ca*sb*cg, s=v*sin(a),
  aa=-(real(p1)-2), bb=imag(p1)-0.0000000000000000001,
  c=p+flip(q)+p4, z=r+flip(s)+p5:
  z=z*z*fn1(z^(aa)+bb)+c
  |z|< 100000000 }

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