{"id":944,"date":"2018-12-01T03:21:09","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T08:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iboxpublishing.com\/wp_podcasts\/?p=944"},"modified":"2018-12-21T01:01:33","modified_gmt":"2018-12-21T06:01:33","slug":"i-failed-at-math-but-mandelbrot-still-inspires-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iboxpublishing.com\/wp_podcasts\/?p=944","title":{"rendered":"I failed at Math, but Mandelbrot still inspires me"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.iboxpublishing.com\/webthumbs\/theFlash.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n<P><br \/>\n<P><CENTER><FONT COLOR=\"#660000\"><FONT SIZE=+2>From the Drawing Board<\/FONT><\/FONT><br \/>\n<P><br \/>\nSaturday, Dec 1st 2018<br \/>\n<P><br \/>\n<B>I failed at Math, but Mandelbrot still inspires me<\/b><P><br \/>\n<center><\/p>\n<table  border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jm_Q1FO9bP4\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><P><br \/>\nFor some reason, I started thinking about math a couple of days ago.  I don&#8217;t know why exactly; I floundered around in math during my time at school until finally flunking out in grade 10.  It wasn&#8217;t pretty.<\/p>\n<p>I had no idea what was going on!  I couldn&#8217;t understand how the other kids could listen to the gobbledegook language the teacher was speaking, (like the muffled wah-wah noises the off-panel teachers in the Peanuts cartoons spoke with), nod with bored expressions, -and write it down and understand it and pass tests and such!  It was amazing!  I&#8217;d just feel stunned and look around sometimes for the hidden camera.  No way did any of that make sense..!<\/p>\n<p>But it did, and I failed often and badly.<\/p>\n<p>Still.., there&#8217;s always been something about numbers which appeals to me.  I find the whole mystery fascinating.  And, to be fair, I was very good at geometry.  -In a balancing kind of way, I was very good at it when it served to confound the other students.  That was <i>my<\/i> mystery language!  -Once I could visualize things, there was no stopping me!  However, that&#8217;s a rather limited super-power, because once I got beyond 3 dimensions, it became impossible to visualize the results, and I become lost and hopeless once more.  I&#8217;m evidently a creature meant to function best in 3D.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I decided a couple of days ago to do some thinking about Fractals.  -They&#8217;re nothing new, and everybody has seen the famous shapes on the covers of science magazines and nerdy posters, but I couldn&#8217;t remember how they worked or why, so I decided to figure it all out again.  It didn&#8217;t take too long, because fractals are really quite simple, so that even a dunderhead like me can work it out.<\/p>\n<p>And the Mandelbrot Set blows my mind!<\/p>\n<p>Check it out:<\/p>\n<p>Z = Z&#178; + C<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s it!<\/p>\n<p>The idea is that you pick some arbitrary number for Z and for C, run the equation, and when you do, you get a new number out the other end.  Then you take that new number and make <I>it<\/I> equal Z, and then you run the equation again.  Rinse and repeat.  You get a unique number every single time.  Then you use a basic plotting scheme with simple rules.  X, Y coordinates.  -And you end up putting dots all over the chart.  Those dots create fantastically complex shapes that never seem to repeat.<\/p>\n<p>When you run the equation a HALF BILLION times, why, you get a shape which is super complex and deep.  The authors of this little math experiment made a video (above) where they zoom into it, and it feels like you&#8217;re a parachute jumper falling endlessly into god&#8217;s eyeball or something<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I thought that was cool; how you can find an infinitely deep shape in such a simple equation!<\/center>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<div class=\"fb-comments\" data-href=\"http:\/\/iboxpublishing.com\/wp_podcasts\/?p=944&#038;preview=true\" data-width=\"500\" data-numposts=\"5\"><\/div>\n<p><P><\/center><\/center><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/iboxpublishing.com\/wp_podcasts\">Post Archive<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Drawing Board Saturday, Dec 1st 2018 I failed at Math, but Mandelbrot still inspires me For some reason, I started thinking about math a couple of days ago. I don&#8217;t know why exactly; I floundered around in math during my time at school until finally flunking out in grade 10. It wasn&#8217;t pretty. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iboxpublishing.com\/wp_podcasts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iboxpublishing.com\/wp_podcasts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iboxpublishing.com\/wp_podcasts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iboxpublishing.com\/wp_podcasts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iboxpublishing.com\/wp_podcasts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/iboxpublishing.com\/wp_podcasts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":981,"href":"http:\/\/iboxpublishing.com\/wp_podcasts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions\/981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iboxpublishing.com\/wp_podcasts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iboxpublishing.com\/wp_podcasts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iboxpublishing.com\/wp_podcasts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}