As somebody kindly pointed out, I should be writing university assignments, and have no right at all to be starting blogs.
So, today it's a blog for the lazy. I'll post a couple of pictures, you can have a look at them, and there'll be no pressure on either of us.
OK?
This came to mind because it's been a wonderful 24 hours for randomly-beautiful things. Like these photographs I took last night - of drips of candle-wax, formed by falling into cold water.
And these, which are by-products of a program I made for a statistics assignment.
It works by laying down three functions on top of each other, each with lots of random variables, so that every time you hit the key, you get a completely different random 'landscape.' Alright, a somewhat different random 'landscape,' at least.
This program has been very distracting. I've been sitting with it for hours like some kind of aesthete- -pigeon, compulsively pressing the button for a new pretty picture.
It's certainly much more fun than the rather tedious unbeatable noughts-and-crosses machine I made a few years ago (misguidely thinking, I suppose, that what we need in our everyday lives is a really efficient way of losing at noughts and crosses..?).
In retrospect, it would have been much improved by some random element which unexpectedly let you win, just as you'd concluded that it was mathematically impossible... or another which unexpectedly starting playing backgammon or telling rude jokes, after consistently playing noughts and crosses a couple of hundred times.
I obviously had no imagination in those days!
2 comments:
Truly wonderful landscapes - they remind me a lot of the Sgt. Pepper's film (which you'd be way too young to remember).
Actually, your wax drops also strike a chord. Have a look at this pictire of Titan from yesterday's APOD (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070530.html).
I have also been playing with new software today (something called ChaosPro). It generates images based on fractals and some of them look surprisingly similar to your wax drops. Are wax drops fractal?
Thanks for the software tip! I'm downloading ChaosPro as I type (although I won't touch it until exams are over....). I've been meaning to write some fractals programs, but I imagine this will make it easier.
As far as I can tell, wax drops are more random than fractal. I will be performing more detailed experiments, again, after exams!
By the way, my trivial discovery for the day: the mean length of a Snakes & Ladders game is 42 throws of the die, although with a huge standard deviation of 36. (Just in case anyone invites you to a game anytime soon - now you know exactly what you're in for.)
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