Period three implies chaos

Today I went into AOD's school and did a short presentation on Chaos. I've always liked chaos as a concept.

Chaos passes through the times in life where the unstable mixture of frustration and confusion and rage have been ignited by a spark of love. The devastation left by this conflagration leaves tiny fragments of life, each of which bears a similarity to the whole. The deeper you look the greater the number of similar patterns emerge. As you zoom out to try and take in the whole the patterns fit together in a jumbled superpatern with familiar resemblance to each piece. Because the fragments fit together it is not as if the world has broken; more like a veil has been removed and detail beyond the powers of human resolution are revealed.

Of course in going in to talk to AOD's advanced Jr. high math-class I take a slightly less maudlin approach to the subject. I also wanted to avoid the use of complex numbers. So I found a really cool little program and rewrote it cludgily (word?) to run on Linux and printed up a giant multi-page Mandelbrot poster. I am too embarrassed of my own code to post it, but here is a link to the original coder. Perhaps I'll post a picture of the poster if I go back to school before it gets destroyed. Something about being in a Jr. High at all that makes my skin crawl. All I really know about Jr. High is how to engage in trouble so profound the very mental state of the delinquents is eroded. Often we must not teach from our own experiences, but instead from the things we read in books.

The Mandelbrot set is such an easy concept considering it is infinity complex. The way I presented it was by 1^st going over the Koch curve, Menger sponge, a few nature fractals and then the logistic equation. I then presented the following equations:

Which I described as iterative functions. I presented the output generated by iterating from a couple of closely spaced points (carefully chosen so one of them was in the Mandelbrot set and the other was outside). The picture looked like this:

I explained that I would put a black dot where the starting point of the spiraling-in iterative path began. “This black dot” I said “is IN the Mandelbrot set”.

I had this projected on the wall, so instead of going into the Pythagorean distance formula to determine the deviation from the starting point I picked up a meter stick and began to measure the distances right on the wall. This created a dramatic pause, filled only with mad gesticulations by a middle aged man. Then I exhaled the statement “when these measurements exceed two we count the number of iterations it took to get here”. I turned to the audience and changed the slide to a spectral rainbow with a scale of integers beside it. “I then look up the number of iterations on this arbitrary color scale and color in the dot.”

“The”

I paused

“result”

I changed the slide.

“of filling in all the dots outside the Mandelbrot set on the Cartesian coordinate system is this”

“...and if we zoom in here”

I pointed to a small box on the slide

“we get this”

and I put up this slide.

“And if we zoom again we get this.”

“Again and this”

“and this”

“again”

“again...”

I thought it went over OK. Perhaps I get a little to theatrical for a third period Jr. High math-class. Of course “period three implies chaos”.

Cycling Tube Boob

Cycling should be boring to watch, and I'm sure for many folks it is. This is natural. The act of cycling is simply the act of pedaling over and over and over again. Sure there is much more amazing scenery in cycling than say basketball.But what goes on should be mind-numbingly dull. one guy pedals while other guys pedal until one goes a little faster...wow.

I can set up my rollers and pedal away for hours re-watching Fabian Cancellara win the 2006 Paris Roubaix, or Tom Boonen win the 2005 tour of Flanders, or my favorite...watching Floyd Landis win the 2006 Tour de France.

When I watch movies on my rollers I turn the speakers up loud so I can catch the dialog. With the cycling I am as likely to be listening to Jimi Hendix as Phil Liggett.

I'm not much of a fan of cycling. I kinda follow it. I was very pleased that Cadel Evans won the 2009 world road race, but I did not find out for a couple of days. Most sports writing bores me to tears. Yet I can watch what should be one of the world's most boring videotaped events with my attention glued to the tube.

Part of it is the exhaustion. Changes in body English or bike control as well tuned athletes are ground down by their own effort. The cyclists are not performing they are expending themselves. Little changes in position alter the amount of power they must generate to maintain speed.

I've watched a couple of marathons and they are not that intriguing to me. The runner tries so hard to conserve energy that the signs of exhaustion and effort are subtle. When the mobile cameras get in close to show what the runner's face looks like they always appear to me to have a “get that camera out of my face” type look. It is not just the exhaustion that makes cycling so interesting to me, as marathon runners also exhaust themselves fully in their discipline.

Perhaps it is the drugs. The riders' not mine. Is “doping” the same as “using”?

This season's marathon training coupled with my gym membership have robbed me of important bicycling DVD time. When I get back from CA the Kestral is going on the rollers and the covers are coming off the DVD's. I have this one of a guy called Alberto Contador (Stephen Colbert says his name means “douchebag” en Espanol) winning the 2007 TDF. I hear the "flying chicken" is in rare form that year!

Star Wars Jesus

Just the other day I made contact with an old friend. Perhaps I would be better to say a friend of old as I had not communicated with them for a couple of decades. In the communication there were several allusions to things of a “spiritual” nature. For no particular reason this made me think of Star wars Jesus (SWJ)
If there was a Jesus that I could really like it would be SWJ. Bleeding cross Jesus and fatherly overlord Jesus actually make me a bit nauseous. The bible pounding poorly defined “you must repent Jesus” often causes me to imagine the late stages of tropical skin diseases.

I am so very pleased that SWJ has become so very popular these days. There are even some folks trying to codify SWJ. They have written a book.

The SWJ I am talking about is the Jesus that is everywhere and nowhere at all. You simply “have to believe” and have “moral thoughts” attributed to SWJ and you can go to heaven. Let the force be with you. A couple reasons why I like SWJ are these:

1) It requires a personal moral compass to exist. Right and wrong exist independent of SWJ and she simply augments this. I like it when people believe it is necessary to know the difference between right and wrong. I do not like it when people say believing in a mythology anoints them with “moral truth”.

2) It is so ephemeral that it can be mapped onto physical attributes of the universe like simply being or the interaction of mater and energy. It is almost the fabric of the universe itself and is therefore as undeniable as chanting OM.

3) It’s existence relies on a self referential positive thought device that is probably quite healthy (mentally speaking).

In fact the only reasons not to like SWJ is the terminology, and perhaps an unfortunate allusion to iron-age mythology. If an alien had no idea what the vestigial terms meant when they had SWJ described to them it would sound pretty cool. It might be a bit pedestrian, as theoretical constructs go. As a mental exercise it could rank up their with Yoga or TM.
I don't think SWJ is a new or compelling idea in and of itself. SWJ is more of a sign of a theological coming of age. The secularists did not have many new ideas when they ushered in a age of liberal theology but they opened a window in society that let people look out. I think SWJ is such a window for our age. I can only hope that SWJ matures from a vague set of notions to a firm religious doctrine taught and canonized. The major obstacle to this is that SWJ is by her very nature a vague set of notions.