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Complex Numbers
Complex Numbers
A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number.
The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi.
Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary.
Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty.
November 4, 2024 at 8:17am November 4, 2024 at 8:17am
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This Cracked article might have been better to post before Halloween, but remember, tomorrow is Election Day here. Scary stuff is still in our future.
I have often looked at articles about what some scientists are doing and think: "You fools! Have you never seen a horror movie?"
Animal testing is an unfortunate but necessary part of certain scientific fields â that is, until the scientists decide to go all Dr. Moreau on some rats. Then itâs just weird. Itâs like theyâve never seen a single monster movie.
See? I'm not the only one. (Sometimes, "horror" gets replaced with "science fiction," but usually, horror is still a subgenre.)
5 The Spider Goat
Spider silk is super useful for a lot of different things, but thereâs a reason you donât see a lot of spider farms.
I saw a video recently on how silkworms do their thing. Silkworms are larval moths, and generally unpleasant to look at, but they lack the visceral horror of arachnids. Still, spiders are cool... from a distance.
In 2012, Utah State University geneticists rectified that problem by splicing spider DNA into goat embryos, who eventually grew up to lactate spider silk.
Friendly neighborhood spider-goat.
4 The Man Mice
In 2013, scientists at the University of Rochester implanted human glial brain cells into the brains of newborn mice, who became much smarter and learned faster than other mice as a result.
"What are we going to do tomorrow night, Brain?"
Also, anyone who has ever seen a horror movie should have implored them to stop.
3 Acid Elephant
In the â60s, experimenting with LSD was all the rage, in both the scientific and âhanging out in your friendâs cousinâs basementâ senses of the word. By 1962, scientists at the University of Oklahoma had run out of ideas until one of them asked, âWhat if we gave an elephant a thousand doses?â
Which makes me wonder: if we see pink elephants, what do elephants see? Gray humans?
2 Magnetized Cockroaches
âCan you turn a cockroach into a magnet?â is a question you only ask after youâve been seriously scientifically jaded...
...or on a serious acid trip.
1 Zombie Dogs
Believe it or not, we do know how to bring once-living creatures back from the dead.
Thus shifting the definition of "dead." Used to be: heart stopped = death, but then CPR came along, and now doctors have to pretty much guess when the point of no return occurs.
Cornish hoped to try his method on humans, specifically a recently executed prisoner, but the government forbade it not out of any fear of a zombie apocalypse but because they werenât sure how double jeopardy laws applied to a revived corpse.
Seems like an important legal loophole to fix.
Add to this mix the penchant of certain scientists to revive millennia-old bacteria found in ice cores, and you definitely have the makings of a horror movie. But still not as scary as tomorrow's election. |
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