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To: zeugma

The Mandelbrot set!


19 posted on 05/17/2018 12:05:45 PM PDT by ELS
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To: ELS
The Mandelbrot set!

Yup. It is a great illustration of the complexity of even simple systems.

Here's a better one that can be easily visualized. Imagine, if you will a table with 3 magnets in an equalateral triangle. Now picture a steel ball suspended from a string hanging down exactly in the center of the 3 magnets. If you were to move the ball to some random point and release it, could you guess which magnet it would end up on after swinging around a bit?

The three colored regions indicate exactly that. You'll notice huge areas where the landing area is easily determined. However, there are boundary areas where the exact position of the ball has a lot to do upon where it ends up. This is a classic fractal that almost perfectly describes the observed physical process. You can zoom into those boundary areas forever and see detail at what would be atomic scales and beyond.

21 posted on 05/17/2018 1:34:04 PM PDT by zeugma (Power without accountability is fertilizer for tyranny.)
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