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Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025

6:04pm EST

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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:

tj wanderlust-words-in-motion

6 minutes ago
In response to "If It's All the Fame To You"

Like you, I do not want fame. If I ever publish anything, it will be under a pen name just for that reason. I enjoy my privacy, and that I do believe is deserved.

tj wanderlust-words-in-motion

a day ago
In response to "No Brain, No Gain"

Studies repeatedly show that you can make yourself smarter. However, studying people in general show that most are getting dumber. Maybe Purina needs to start making Purina Brain Food; I'm sure there would be a good market.

1 Like

Jayne

a day ago
In response to "No Brain, No Gain"

I read the article. I now haz the dumb.

Any time I see one of these popcorn pieces that ignores socioeconomic conditions and deliberate oppression of education/continuous learning, I want to rip my hair out.

Bootstrap mentality at its finest.

#RantOver.

3 Like

tj wanderlust-words-in-motion

Jan 19, 2025 at 4:51pm
In response to "Revisited: "Science Is Almost Always Wrong...""

My ninth grade chemistry teacher used to threaten a kick to our Bunsen burner.

2 Like

🌖 HuntersMoon

Jan 19, 2025 at 10:09am
In response to "Revisited: "Science Is Almost Always Wrong...""

I feel for you, Bob. "Kiss my Pythagoras" never really caught on either.

2 Like

tj wanderlust-words-in-motion

Jan 18, 2025 at 6:07pm
In response to "Bon Voyage"

Who knows, maybe they'll like the record, swap it out with one of their own and ship it back in the original container(Voyager), starting an intergalactic record exchange.

2 Like

🌖 HuntersMoon

Jan 18, 2025 at 10:14am
In response to "Bon Voyage"

It's not exactly like having your credit cards hacked.

For those interested...

2 Like

Elisa: Snowman Stik

Jan 18, 2025 at 9:31am
In response to "Bon Voyage"

"People like a happy-ending success story, I hear."

Now to see if this one gets a good response here or if it needs to be further shared.

2 Like

🌖 HuntersMoon

Jan 17, 2025 at 2:51pm
In response to "Up In Re-Volt"

Interesting... but the puns

@ Jayne: One of my all-time favorite scenes.

1 Like

tj wanderlust-words-in-motion

Jan 17, 2025 at 12:21pm
In response to "Up In Re-Volt"

After reading this I realized that most of what I know about electricity is that if you get a shock, it Hertz!

4 Like

January 22, 2025 at 10:29am

#1082667

If It's All the Fame To You

The article I'm playing with today is quite old by internet standards, dated all the way back in 2013. It's likely that a few things have changed since then—but not human nature.

Homo Narrativus and the Trouble with Fame
We think that fame is deserved. We are wrong.

Funny thing about "deserved:" I, for one, would hate to have fame. A bit more reach for my writing, maybe, but I don't want the spotlight or red carpet or cameras in my face or any of that crap. If I became famous, and someone told me I "deserved" it, I'd ask what sin I committed to make me deserve that kind of nonsense.

We humans are storytelling and story-finding machines: homo narrativus, if you will.

I most certainly will not. Not that I disagree with the storytelling bit. It's one reason I'm here. Just stop with the faux binomials already.

In our everyday, human stories, far away from science, we have a limited (if generous) capacity to entertain randomness—we are certainly not homo probabilisticus.

I can only assume this author is a specimen of homo annoyingcuss.

We also instinctively build our stories around individuals.

Yeah, that's, like, so basic you have to know it before even getting accepted into Writing 101.

Both stories tether the complex, stochastic narrative of the larger population to that of an individual. We can’t blame the Times here: This kind of narrative works. We can put ourselves into that person’s mind, walk in their shoes, and travel in their story.

That's a lot of words to rephrase that a thousand deaths are a statistic, while one death is a tragedy.

I'm not going to quote a lot more, here. The basic argument seems to be that fame is due more to the characteristics of the people who make someone or something famous, rather than some intrinsic quality of the famous person or thing.

And the author (who, as far as I know, isn't famous) lays out a decent case for that, but it gets kinda long and maybe even a bit mathy. Mathive? Yeah, I'm going to go with mathive, as in it was a mathive pain in the butt to read all that.

So just one more, then:

The data implies that there is no such thing as fate, only the story of fate. This idea is encoded in the etymology of the word: “fate” derives from the Latin fatus, meaning “spoken”—talk that is done—in direct opposition to the root of “fame,” which is fāma, meaning “talk.”

Retreating to etymology when in doubt about a concept is a trick of mine, too. But I like to think that when I do it, it makes more sense than trying to tease out the difference between "spoken" and "talk." Even if the difference is one of past vs. present continuous tenses (which that quote seems to imply), that's hardly "direct opposition."

Of course, it may be that I'm missing something.

But you know what I'm not missing? Being famous.

5 Like • Comment • View 1 comment

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