Recurring interest

[Skittlebisquit]

You might like a book called
The holographic universe
By Michael Talbot

 

[Crossbreed]

I’ll have to dig into the math quite a bit to see if I can get some understanding of it.

But anagrams are not a mathematical phenomenon, just a language-based one.

"Treat swiper" is an anagram for Watersprite.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I look upon that as an exercise in numerology, not maths, to discern anagrams. Palindromes would have different characteristics in that not only would they be equivalent by your example, if one multiplies the position number by the letter value (a =1 through z =26) and adds the score, they would be identical there too.

 

[Progster]

Perhaps K A has some good tutorials.

K A = Khan Academy?

To me it just looks like an anagram - I can't see any maths involved, unless I'm missing something?

 

[Varzar]

So in the case of these 2 strings of characters, their goal is to see if they’re unique, so they sort them to compare them.

The sorting was more to see if they were equal, not unique.

I guess in multisets the two sets (of characters in this case) are considered equal if they both contain the same set of characters, regardless of order.
So "Madame Curie" and "Radium Came" have the same set of characters, just in a different order, but with multisets, they would consider that two equal sets.
To make the comparison though with the strings in that order would be complicated. By converting both strings to alphabetical order sets of characters and then comparing that, it is easier to test the equivalence.
That alphabetized set of characters in this case is their canonicalized/normalized form.

 

[watersprite]

@Progster
It can be looked at like an anagram, but (apparently) it is used in math as @Varzar explained above.

Spoiler: more info

This all got rolling because my son who's doing summer research work in abstract algebra, &/or I think it's called C*, mentioned that my series of abstract paintings might be interesting to look at from a symbolic or math point of view. A couple of them reminded him of some of the graphical representations their work generated. So of course that set me wondering if some sort of matrix might be able to generate my paintings rather than my brain

 

[Varzar]

This all got rolling because my son who's doing summer research work in abstract algebra, &/or I think it's called C*, mentioned that my series of abstract paintings might be interesting to look at from a symbolic or math point of view. A couple of them reminded him of some of the graphical representations their work generated. So of course that set me wondering if some sort of matrix might be able to generate my paintings rather than my brain

It wouldn't surprise me at all. As much as we often like to believe we are creatures capable of complete randomness, we are programmed in a lot of ways. We see beauty in the Golden Ratio of 1.618 shown by Da Vinci. We hear harmony in musical notes that are mathematically related to each other (e.g. octaves are double/half the frequency of the adjacent octave note). We are products of nature, and nature seems to always use patterns in constructing all things.

So, the idea that everything that is a product of our brain is something we could also replicate using math would totally make sense to me. Even if it is abstract art.

@Misery's fractal art is a pretty cool example of where we create art using math already.

 

[watersprite]

I love the visceral tactile feeling of putting brush to paint to canvas. So while working through the computer is wonderful, I "need" the sense of the flow coming directly from me to the canvas.
The pleasing and peaceful 1.618 shows up in so many places that I can't help but believe it's source is deeper, older than our current brains.

An algorithm working with matrices, 1.618, and given some data, some parameters from my favorite paintings would be very interestinfg to play with. Maybe my son could put it together for me.

 

[Misery]

An algorithm working with matrices, 1.618, and given some data, some parameters from my favorite paintings would be very interestinfg to play with. Maybe my son could put it together for me.

That's effectively what fractal art is. You're smashing algorithms and parameters into a program, fiddling with it, and then hitting "render" and watching it fart out the results.

I'll show a couple of examples since it's been mentioned:

That's just a couple of examples. Doing these is VERY different from traditional art. I cant just sit down and decide "well I'd sure love to draw a cat wearing a clown mask today" and actually end with that. What I CAN do is start out with a confusing mess, experiment and enter parameters and tweak things and add/remove/combine formulas and all this stuff, and so on... this is a very EXPLORATORY art form. Often literally. That 3rd image is a full 3D object of what I assume to be infinite depth (as fractals generally are). Creating the overall object wasnt too hard, once I knew enough. But after creating the object, I couldnt just take a screenshot and be done with it... the thing from the outside is ugly. So, to get that shot, I literally dove the camera into it... deep, very deep, until I found a scene I liked, and then there was gradient tweaking (which makes the colors) and lighting/shadows, and then it needed about 5 billionty years to render the final image (and by that I mean about 20 minutes).

Sometimes these can take awhile to make, other times they dont. That 2nd image probably took like, oh... 5 minutes. It looks complicated and detailed, but that's not what determines how difficult these are to do.

I also do physical art, but the benefit to me of having this is, well... I cant ALWAYS do the physical stuff. This is good when I'm in the mood to MAKE something, but cannot use the physical tools. But also, it's occurred to me that the two dont have to be entirely separate. I like doing abstract stuff, but when it comes to sitting down and DRAWING abstract stuff, I tend to blank out. I'm never sure what to do and will have a tendency to just wave the pen around at random, which isnt very interesting. But fractals are EXTREMELY abstract, and it's occurred to me that I can look at these things I've made, and use those as inspiration for the physical creations. They act as the "prompt" that can get me started when using my pens and such.

It's ALSO occurred to me though that the two could literally be combined... I intend to get a printer soon, and then all I need is a bit of creativity and probably glue, and then also probably something to clean up the inevitable horrible mess I'll make with the glue. Maybe tape? I dunno, but "fractal + physical" is an idea I've had in my mind for ages now, so I'm going to try it.

Yeah, sorry, rambling a bit, but this is definitely an interest of mine. It's one of those things where I think a lot of people would like it if they tried it (it's not as hard to learn as it might seem) but many dont even know this sort of thing exists. This thread DEFINITELY seemed to lean in this direction.

And yes, it is possible to do like, themed stuff. This 1.618 number you mention... I'm not too clear on what it is but I imagine that jamming that into these at various points could create interesting experiments. Another common theme is spirals, every fractal artist deals with spirals. Or you could make horrible eldritch meat faces, I keep doing that... somehow. Not too clear on how or why, but may as well roll with it...

 

[watersprite]

Ramble all you want I love hearing about this and talking about it.
I think it’d be very good to see what happens if/when you do combine the computer generated with some sort of physical manipulation. It might be hard to jump that gap but maybe not.

I’d like to see a panel hanging from a high ceiling with the images generating and then descending (ascending?) through its iterations.
1.618 = The golden ratio.
The Golden Ratio

Golden ratio - Wikipedia

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

THE only thing that I noticed , rather obvious is the letters are an anagram, not into games and puzzles

 

[Misery]

Ramble all you want I love hearing about this and talking about it.

Well, there's only so much I can say before it stops making sense. A lot of the actual math stuff is beyond my understanding (you dont need to grasp HOW the formulas work in order to use them, you just need to be ready to experiment). I'm learning more as I go, certainly, but there is much I dont understand.

Just to give an idea:

That's one of the programs I use to make the 3D ones. All those data fields on the left are whats stuffed into the formulas to control the shape, and there are many formula types. There are a lot of seperate tabs and windows that do all sorts of things.

And that's one of the programs used to create the 2D ones. Lots going on there, eh?

As of right now, I have the 3D program above, another 3D one that creates a very different breed of objects, 3 programs focused around 2D fractal creation (each is good at different things), 1 that's about making mandalas (that one uses a drawing tablet), another that creates... uh... well I'm not even sure what to call those, they're fractal-ish and very stringy, and then 2 programs used for adding post effects, one of which is all about kaleidoscopic effects and the other is lots of strange effects and tweaking.

I do also have a traditional art program on here and a drawing tablet, so that's something else that could be combined with this.

But yeah, with how bizarre the things are, it's hard to know what to say about them. Usually I just show them. If you want to see the ones I've done so far, try this:

ScrapFractals - Hobbyist, Digital Artist | DeviantArt

These are fun to do and they dont take forever (usually) so I make them frequently.

It's also possible to make full animations out of them (including the 3D ones) but I've only messed with that aspect a bit. I've made two 3D animations, may as well show one since I'm already rambling:

You can see the recursive aspects of these things, bits of it curve/repeat in on itself as it warps. That object actually is a fully 3D thing, it just looks 2D because of the camera angle and the object's properties.

That animation isnt even a minute long, yet it took about 4 hours of the PC nearly killing itself to render it. There are people who do professional fractal animations, apparently a lot of the really good ones could take like 10 straight days of nonstop processing to render (better hope there arent any mistakes!)

The good thing is that it's easy for anyone to get started... certain programs are horribly expensive, but others are super cheap or free, yet all of them are professional-level stuff. And it doesnt take long to make your first object. I did my first 3D whatsit after watching like a 30 minute tutorial on Youtube and then poking the program for another 30 minutes, and then was able to just go from there. As obtuse as these things are, they're quite easy to get started with.

I can certainly answer questions about these things, but I'm not too sure what to say beyond this without prompting.