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Friday, Nov. 1, 2024

1:25pm EDT

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Complex Numbers

by Robert Waltz

Rated: 18+ · Book · Personal · #1196512

Not for the faint of art.

Complex Numbers

A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number.

The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi.

Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary.

Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty.

http://www.ddewey.net/mandelbrot/

Signature for Honorable Mentions in 2018 Quill Awards

A signature for exclusive use of winners at the 2019 Quill Awards

Signature for those who have won a Quill Award at the 2020 Quill Awards

Show Recent Comments

10 Most Recent Blog Comments:

Wordsmitty ✍️

7 minutes ago
In response to "Cave In"

Makes you wonder what might be under your city - or house.

Elisa: Stik or Treat

about an hour ago
In response to "Cave In"

"Well, clearly, that's because Minneapolis is actually a gateway to Hell."

Easy there, J.D. Vance.

In all seriousness, my guess is to actual recycle this heat they'd probably build pipelines to direct the heat energy to the nearest power plant (maybe Hennepin Island?) to spin turbines. This would involve converting buildings to run on heat pumps first (maybe with natural gas backups because subzero days do still happen). Regardless, whatever recycling involved would be an indirect process. Putting that heat and also hated fumes directly into buildings would be wildly unpopular. It's bad enough when southern winds bring the manure scent into the metro in the late autumn. This would make that scent a bit more permanent than we'd like.

1 Like

Write_Mikey_Write!

about an hour ago
In response to "Cave In"

Seeing as how I'm reasonably certain you keep up with each other's blogs, I can't help but wonder what a certain well-informed, Stik-like Minneapolitan will have to say about this.

1 Like

tj-turkey-jobble-jobble-hard-J

about 20 hours ago
In response to "Phases"

Perhaps, if the full moon drives one to madness, the half moon will only make one half-crazy.

1 Like

Brandiwyn🎶

Oct 29, 2024 at 12:18pm
In response to "The Numbers Don't Lie"

I hear ya. I like to think I'm discerning enough to detect fakes, but that might just be my ego talking. When it comes to local businesses, I also go to social media and request recommendations. With both reviews from strangers and recommendations from friends, I give more credence when more (anecdotal, heh) details are provided. It's more an art than science, but liars either have such flawless details that their story sounds fabricated, or they get embarrassed when they trip themselves up. Truthtellers make errors, because memories are fallible, but they get more confused than embarrassed. Ultimately, the only way to really know is to try the product/service yourself. Which is why you'll hear about my Cancun vacation next month, but you don't have to believe me.

1 Like

Robert Waltz

Oct 29, 2024 at 11:07am
In response to "The Numbers Don't Lie"

Brandiwyn🎶

- I, too, look at the 1-star reviews, though again, reviews aren't my sole criteria. But sometimes it's blatant fake reviewing from the competition: "Don't stay here! It has rats, bedbugs, and roaches! Stay at this other place instead!" where "this other place" is clearly owned by the reviewer.

On the other paw, five-star reviews are often salted by the establishment in question.

Used to be, you could look at the four- and two- star reviews to get more honest, nuanced opinions, but the establishments, and their competition, have figured out that trick.

Which is one reason why reviews aren't my sole criteria.

(None of this applies to WDC reviews, or to the artificially inflated Uber rating system)

Brandiwyn🎶

Oct 29, 2024 at 11:00am
In response to "The Numbers Don't Lie"

And I was going to conclude by saying, when evaluating Caribbean vacation destinations, even if 5,000 people gave it a 4.8 rating, if the one star reviews were from seven people who encountered rats in their rooms, I'm very likely to not choose this destination.

2 Like

Brandiwyn🎶

Oct 29, 2024 at 10:58am
In response to "The Numbers Don't Lie"

Well, that was annoying. I was still in the process of editing, so please excuse the multitude of errors. I also intended to italicize the quotes from your post. Stupid f****** Parkinson's.

1 Like

Brandiwyn🎶

Oct 29, 2024 at 10:56am
In response to "The Numbers Don't Lie"

You know what sometimes lies? Anecdotes.

Also, dogs, I've heard.

Oh, hell no.

🤣 I love a good inside joke, but my marketing guru would tell you to cross link here

The fallacy is named after Robert McNamara, the U.S. Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, where his over-reliance on measurable data led to several misguided strategies

Bet he's proud of his claim to fame.

What's the point in data, then?

The point in data is a decimal separator, unless here in non-english speaking countries, in which case it's more likely a thousands separator.

So, whenever I'm evaluating online reviews for pretty much anything, and for the record I check them for almost everything - I always consider three things: 1. The average rating (eg, number of stars); 2. The The number of contributors to the rating; and three. What the one star ratings say.

1 Like

NaNoNette

Oct 28, 2024 at 2:47pm
In response to "Waste Not"

In Southern California, every single family residence has a green bin. Every trash day, three different trucks make the rounds.

1 for composting
1 for recycling
1 for garbage

Trader Joe's sells almost exclusively packaged foods, even perishables. They have contracts with college food pantries. In many colleges, there are now pantries that are open to the students 4 or 5 days a week plus 1 day when people from the community can drive up and receive a bag with a mix of fresh fruits and vegetables along with non-perishable foods and donated sundries.

Churches are huge food redistribution centers also.

The "too hard to set up" systems have created good jobs here. Instead of seeing food donations as a liability, they have created a supervised and refrigerated second market.

The cost for employees is small because, of course, many of the positions are volunteers. But the supervisors and some of the staff are full time employees with benefits.

The article has thrown up obstacles that are easy to overcome.

3 Like

November 1, 2024 at 11:01am

#1079301

Cave In

Did my early voting today, so I can spend Election Day doing more important things, like drinking.

Unrelated to that or, well, anything else, really, is this Atlas Obscura article featuring an obscure city in an obscure state:

The Strange Heat Island Lurking Beneath Minneapolis
An urban explorer ventured deep below downtown in search of Schieks Cave. What he found changed science.

Greg Brick knew it was there, lurking beneath his city, hidden within the Minneapolis water and sewer system: an enticing geologic anomaly called Schieks Cave.

That sort of thing fascinates me, but I can't be arsed to do all the work or break the laws necessary to explore for myself.

When Brick arrived at the cave, he shined a flashlight into the thick darkness of the city’s underbelly. He found not just the natural void but also concrete walls that previous generations of civil engineers had built to support the natural structure.

If those civil engineers were anything like me, they wrote something like "put a concrete wall here" on a map, and some minimum-wage temps did the actual work.

The water was about 20 degrees hotter than it was supposed to be. It was more like the groundwater of Mississippi than that of Minneapolis. Something was warming the water beneath his city.

Well, clearly, that's because Minneapolis is actually a gateway to Hell.

[The cave's] discovery in 1904 by a city sewer engineer was initially kept secret lest the public fear Minneapolis had been built on unstable ground.

Apparently, it was, else generations of civil engineers wouldn't have specced out concrete support walls in the cave.

He finally had a way to access the cave—but there was another problem. Along the route, the raw sewage poured from shafts overhead, shooting bacteria into the air as it splashed down and creating what’s politely known as “coliform aerosols.” Unsurprisingly, Brick got sick.

Another reason for us civil engineers to stay at our desks.

In 2008, a separate team from the University of Minnesota had predicted that heat from Minneapolis’s urban surface was conducting itself deep underground, heating the groundwater there like a metropolitan microwave.

As the article notes, this turned out to be the correct explanation, not the "gateway to Hell" one. Much to my disappointment.

But it’s not all bad news: Canadian and European researchers recently suggested recycling underground heat and using it as a low-carbon way to heat homes, while also cooling the groundwater back down to normal temps.

I hope their "suggestion" included exactly how to do that.

Now, from the headline, I was expecting some discovery of dark matter or a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics or whatever. But no. Still, at least it's not boring.

2 Like • Comment • View 3 comments

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