the corner office : Trippy

Trippy

Fractals are maths being beautiful. Mandelbrot sets are infinite, meaning you can zoom into an image, going deeper and deeper and never stopping. The following video is just a 'camera' zooming into a fractal. And zooming and zooming and zooming and zooming:

From the source:

The last two minutes are very intense! The final magnification is e.214. Want some perspective? A magnification of e.12 would increase the size of one actual single particle, to the same size as the earths orbit! e.21 would make that particle look the same size as the milky way! e.42 would be equal to the universe! This zoom smashes all of them away. If you were “actually traveling” into the fractal, your speed would be faster than the speed of light.

It goes on for a bit, but for a fun optical trick, stare at it for a minute or so, then look away.

(via, via)

{2010.03.07 16:57}

Comments:

1. sal (2010.03.08 - 10:28) #

i've kind of gone blind in my left eye. is that the fun trick??

2. Colin (2010.03.09 - 18:16) #

Well, if you enjoyed being half-blind, then that's a start :) I think it might just be me 'cause Ronwen didn't get it either... if I start at it for long enough then look away, everything goes warpy.

3. david (2010.03.20 - 04:13) #

For a while it was an open question weather or not M is connected i.e. does not contain disjoint subsets.

Amazingly, connected it is.