chaoticutopia | November 10, 2007Speaking of unpredictable climate changes, there was always that surprising storm on Jupiter that started brewing last year (and still blows strongly.) I figured now would be as good a time as any to repost the fractal I made in tribute. (This works out especially well, as I didn’t have anything else prepared.)
Pictures released to the media [May 5, 2006] seemed absolutely perfect for the Friday Fractal. A breathtaking example of sensitive dependence on initial conditions, today’s image shows the enigmatic beauty of chaotic patterns. No scientist has yet been able to explain the famous deep…
chaoticutopia | November 10, 2007All these sets of knowledge were laid out before me, like packages tied in brightly colored papers and curling ribbons, each as enticing as the last. These weren’t just ideas, like the pictures on the pages of catalogs, but complete structures; laws and theories and all the understandings that led to their constructions. Bright packages of knowledge, each a puzzle unto itself--how was I to choose among them?
To open them all would be certain madness--yet how could I resist? Oh, to be no longer limited to catalog poses, to grasp the real thing. If I opened them all at once, would I be…
chaoticutopia | November 10, 2007It’s been quiet around here, lately... partially, I’ve just been too busy to post, but it would be inaccurate to say I haven’t had any free time. On the other hand, I’ve been lost in deep thought, trying to understand the path I’m on... what I’m studying in school, both the content of my current classes as well as my overall path. It’s been an interesting few months... I feel as if my life has turned upside down, and many of my priorities have been rearranged. One love stands true, however... my love for writing. So while I’d like to describe all that I’ve learned recently--that I love math,…
chaoticutopia | November 3, 2007It’s time to set clocks back an hour again, if you are in an area that practices daylight savings time. I sometimes wish we didn’t use it here in Colorado; it always manages to confuse my schedule somehow. At any rate, I figured I’d honor the turning of the wheel of time, and the changing seasons with an abstract fractal:
Seasonal Cycles and Fractal Concentric Circles
It might not seem too recognizable, but I used the same sort of formula to create this fractal as I did these fractal trees earlier in the year. Since I’ve been messing around with animations lately, it may actually be easier…
chaoticutopia | October 31, 2007...or, what happens when pagans skip biology class:
Happy Halloween!
Comic by Shivian Montar Balaris at Oh My Gods
chaoticutopia | October 30, 2007Lately, I've been pondering our use of models to predict the future conditions of our planet. However, it is also nearly Halloween. Together, it seems like a good time to pull out this old post of mine, which asks if a deck of Tarot cards can be a useful tool for modeling a person's life.
Don't get me wrong... I'm not about to attempt to defend some pseudoscience, nor am I going to expose a mass of woo. Instead, this is more an argument between two sides of personality: the battle between the skeptic and the empath.
If you've read some of my [older] fictional entries, such as A Hint of…
chaoticutopia | October 29, 2007Shelley tagged me for this one some time ago, but it was poorly timed. But with Halloween just around the corner, what better time could there for morbid quizzes?
$3675.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth.
So, there you have it... my corpse is worth over three and a half grand. Woohoo! If you’re the type who always checks the organ donation box on the driver’s license applications, and you haven’t tried this before, consider yourself tagged.
chaoticutopia | October 27, 2007It’s getting to be that time of year again, when I pull the severed heads and oversized rats from the crawlspace... a time to deck the halls with ultraviolet, spider webs and witches brooms. My passion for the night of fright even bleeds into my blogging. For instance, there’s the fractal in my banner. It is the exact same Julia set that is normally there, just with a slightly different set of colors. If I were to change the fractal itself, it might come out looking something like this:
But... since I actually posted this fractal as my banner last year, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to come…
chaoticutopia | October 24, 2007Last week, I discussed the difficulty of creating a perfect model of our environment. Once, I toyed around with the idea of a perfect simulation... wouldn’t it be indistinguishable from reality? What if we created the perfect model--and it turned out to actually be reality? As advanced as our technology is, we obviously won’t have to worry about this any time soon. But in a science fiction story, where plausibility is a little plastic, we can explore such questions. So, that’s what I did last year--I wrote a story. And here it is:
Ω
By Karmen Lee Franklin
The General swept his fingers…
chaoticutopia | October 20, 2007After questioning how easily we might create useful models of our environment the other day, I started to wonder if I could even mimic our planet with a fractal. I’ve played around with spherical fractals in the past, for instance, my Paper Ball and my Harvest Moon. As with most of my fractals, I could only come so close. These patterns, as with most fractals, are based on a "seed" number; a number chosen at random. So, after choosing an earth-like palette and setting up the basics, I started trying different seeds. Some produced worlds covered in oceans, others bare and rocky. Sometimes they…
chaoticutopia | October 18, 2007
How do we study our environment? Is it too complex a thing to quantitatively describe, and thus too complex to exhibit predictable behavior? I’ve been performing a thought experiment over the past few days, tossing around such questions. I’m not sure I can really adequately describe these thoughts with words or images. Still, I’m going to try.
Individual scientific experiments tend to be specific. We look at a certain property and try to explain it with a hypothesis, then test that hypothesis repeatedly under various conditions to show if it is valid or not. If it isn’t, we head back to…
chaoticutopia | October 14, 2007I suppose, if I wanted to make things easier, I would just start calling these the "Weekend Fractal" but it just doesn’t have the same ring. Besides, this week, Carl Zimmer beat me to the Friday Fractal, on naked skin even. (The owner of the fleshy fractal shares some interesting insights on his Julia set; be sure to check it out.) Still, I had this section of a Mandelbrot set lying around, whose autumn hues would be ill fit if posted later in the season:
You can see where this slice fits in to the entire set in this short movie:
     
Here, if…
chaoticutopia | October 10, 2007I may study it, but sometimes chaos and uncertainty become too much to bear. I didn’t explain my absence in the last announcement, and this may not explain much more. Last week, my father had an operation to remove a tumor in his kidney. The surgery was intensive, but successful. We’re grateful that he was in the hands of excellent surgeons. I’m afraid I was holding my breath inside and my emotions back for so long, to let them out is something of an overwhelming release. All of the stress from school and work combined couldn’t equal the apprehension I felt then, nor could any words truly…
chaoticutopia | September 28, 2007Due to extending circumstances, Chaotic Utopia will be on hiatus for the next week. Regular blogging, including more animated fractals and further discussion of climate change, will resume in early October. I apologize for the inconvenience, and hope to provide more details later. Thanks for your patience and kind thoughts!
chaoticutopia | September 23, 2007This week’s fractal has been delayed slightly, to coincide with the Autumnal Equinox. It isn’t your usual Friday Fractal, either.
I was fiddling around this week, thinking about ancient symbols which may have represented some sort of dynamic changes. Were our ancestors fascinated by the relentless cycles of nature on which their lives were so dependant? Changing seasons meant changes in food supply to a hunter-gatherer culture, and thus changes in survival strategies. Rhythmic patterns were the way of life. (Is today really any different?) It stands to reason that some ancient artists would…
chaoticutopia | September 19, 2007Ahoy there, mehearties! Since it be Talk Like a Pirate day, I know yer probably wantin’ to be off ridin’ the waves, plundering the countryside, drinkin’ rum by the gallon and other piratey tasks, but first, there be a battle brewin here that I’d like to tell ye about. Arrrrgh! Who says a woman can’t be a pirate? Er, wait, I mean, who says that a woman can’t be an A-list science blogger? No, wait... why can’t a woman be a pirate AND an A-list science blogger? Anyone who assumes she can’t ought to be walkin’ the plank.
So, who ought to be walkin’ the plank, then? Try The Scientist, who recently…
chaoticutopia | September 18, 2007What sort effects will temperature change have on our planet? Sure, the melting of the ice caps and the raising coastlines seem like important issues to address, as do hurricanes, droughts, and the management of fossil fuels. But what about the little things?
Wouldn’t temperature change have an effect on smaller, more sensitive organisms prior to affecting large organisms like ourselves? A degree or two difference may not mean very much to you or I... that’s not even the difference between a sweater day and a t-shirt day. Yet, what if you were a cold-blooded insect? How about a single-celled…
chaoticutopia | September 18, 2007Remember the ol’ Bush compound on Walker’s Point, in Kennebunkport, Maine? Check out this map, indicating the effects of sea level rise:
A one meter rise of sea level is shown in red, while the yellow indicates a six meter rise.
That might make the storm they had in 1991 look like a mild shower:
Debris and rubble left by 20-foot waves striking Walker’s Point on November 2, 1991
Shouldn’t the president be a little worried about the house his family has occupied for more than 100 years?
Oh... wait... that’s right. He prefers to spend his vacations in Crawford, Texas. I wonder why?
View…
chaoticutopia | September 15, 2007Note from your fractalist: Sorry, folks, this one is a day late. I discovered early yesterday that my old website had been hacked. It has been fixed, now, although I plan to eventually remove everything from there, and repost it here somewhere. Just getting the bad scripts out has kept me plenty busy. Never fear, I did finish the Friday Fractal. Other (current) posts are forthcoming. -K
I’m not the only one around here who gets into fractals. I’ve noticed a few other science bloggers occasionally blog on the topic. Mark, over at Good Math, Bad Math, has been working on a series describing the…
chaoticutopia | September 11, 2007I’m not sure whether this comic is funny or frightening:
Either way, Rob Balder did it again.