STALKING THE WILY FRACTAL

Dam a bunch-o sneaky ass fractals anyway. Wanna use up a couple of hours and generate a glossary sheet full of words whose definitions are full of words you'll need definitions for. Maybe you should check out fractals. Oh yeah you'll need an attractor, no, not a protractor. If you clicked on attractor, you probably see (phase space, iteration, differential equation) what I mean.

  I just wanted to describe the cool patterns I found with my fractal exploration programs (I use the free ones). I got lucky when I found a book on fractals at a yard sale (cheap). Chaos: The Making Of A New Science by James Gleick (1988) is still my favorite fractal reference. It's my only book with more bookmarks in it than my copy of The Dancing Wu Li Masters. Even though all the formulae went right over my head, and it's doubtful my math vocabulary will ever catch up, it's not enough to stop me. I barely understand lots of my favorite stuff.

 I guess What got me started illen was trying to find a link to share Tierazon, one of my all time favorite (kinda hard to use) fractal explorers (not free at the moment). I'll probably have to edit most of this cranky rant out later, but if you clicked on that last link, you may share my disappointment (bummer). At least the link to Manpwin is still hot. It's latest version includes a number of color filter settings (and other stuff) from Tierazon (some of which works).

While zooming around in a fractal, that whole perturbed oscillator thing means that the patterns never quite repeat  but are self-similar. In Tierazon the regions of apparently 3d forms have allowed me to find a number of favorite neighborhoods.

The three fractals here all relate to the InkyOliveBunny coffee mug design I made for the Stochastic Dreams section at the Flatware County General Store. Thing is I had to go back and render them big since I liked the neighborhood enough to make it make it my desk-top, and the one for the mug was already too small unless I cropped and stretched it.

I gotta admit  I don' begrudge Stephen C. Ferguson his decision to charge admission to play among his many software titles. While I love Tierazon and have spent a ridiculous amount of time stalking the wily fractal there, I'm cheap, and don't have a budget for updating my fractal chasing tools.What tha hey, my old shareware version is still kicking and, this "Poor little fractal monkey," isn't about to stop pressing the lever.

Strange Attractors

How to find them, those regions
Of space where the equation traces
Over and over a kind of path,
Like the moth that batters its way
Back toward the light
Or, hearing the high cry of the bat,
Folds its wings in a rolling dive?--Robin S. Chapman

From the Robin S. Chapman poem Strange Attractors @ sprott.physics.wisc.edu/sapoem.htm