Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts:

Today's image is definitely on the wrong track.  It lies in the western branch of North Valley of its parent fractal, which on the surface is an un-notable Mandelbrot set.  When we start at the surface of this parent, all is as it should be, with the spirals like seahorse tails that would be expected in this area.  But by the time we reach the depth of the first minibrot, we find that something has gone wrong.  The minibrot has become a disorganized mess rather than the well-defined quadratic midget that would be expected.

The inside of this fractal mess is filled with piles of debris however, and in this debris some strange things are happening.  Checking one of these debris piles, we find it is an area of anti-bifurcation filled with more seahorse tails.  Today's scene lies in one of these tails.

Around its edges, today's image presents no problems.  It consists of everyday quadratic stuff with the expected 4,8,16... series of elements.  But about halfway in, things go terribly awry, and the sequence resets itself to the order-7 series of 7,49,343...  When we reach the central minibrot the surprises continue.  Instead of a quadratic minibrot we find a full-blown order-7 one, with 6 lobes, surrounded by an area holding a legion of smaller similar minibrots.

The reason for all this craziness is known only by the gods of numbers, and they are not revealing their secrets.  As for myself, I see simply another fractal surprise in a world where there are so many surprises that the surprises are in danger of losing their ability to surprise.

The rating of an 8 includes a half point or so of optimism.  The name "On the Wrong Track" describes the 'wrong' minibrots cluttering the center of the image.

The calculation time is an eminently reasonable 2-4/5 minutes.

Monday brought too many clouds for perfection, but it remained dry, and the temperature of 82F 28C was near perfect.  The fractal cats had a reasonably peaceful day, though at one point I heard Cassie cussing at Nicholas.  The humans had an equally peaceful, but dull day.  The next FOTD will be posted in 24 hours.  Until then, take care, and if we didn't have all those fantastic wireless internet devices, how would we communicate?

Jim Muth
jimmuth@earthlink.net


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

On_the_Wrong_Track { ; time=0:02:49.16-SF5 on P4-2000
  reset=2004 type=formula formulafile=basicer.frm
  formulaname=FinDivBrot-2 function=recip passes=1
  center-mag=-0.1962128361703378/+0.6526484177635086\
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frm:FinDivBrot-2   { ; Jim Muth
z=(0,0), c=pixel, a=-(real(p1)-2),
esc=(real(p2)+16), b=imag(p1):
z=(b)*(z*z*fn1(z^(a)+b))+c
|z| < esc }

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