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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.
February 6, 2022 at 12:02am February 6, 2022 at 12:02am
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Another blind quote from "Journalistic Intentions" [18+] -- again, I don't recognize where this comes from other than that it's a song, and I'm responding without looking it up.
"It's the power that gives you the strength to survive."
Oh! It must be about beer!
Not knowing the source of the quote -- and boy am I going to kick myself if it turns out I recognize the song -- I think it's fun to speculate.
A literal reading would lead one to believe the antecedent to "it" would be food. After all, food is power, and if you don't eat it for a while you won't survive, and it keeps your strength up. Or maybe solar energy, because without it, we'd all weaken and die frozen. Or, I know! Money. Money gives us the strength to survive, and with it you can buy food. Still, I like beer as an answer better.
Knowing pop music, though, it's probably talking about love or faith or some bullshit like that. In which case it's demonstrably untrue, because I've lived without love for a very long time and without faith for a whole lot longer and, well... here I am, chugging along just fine.
Maybe it's not pop music, though. Maybe it's experimental surrealism, in which case "it" could be something like the color orange, or perhaps wombat poop. Or would that be not surrealism but cubism? Okay, that's an obscure joke on several levels, but I'm sticking with it.
I wonder what cubist music would sound like (other than wombat shit)? I mean, anything can be surreal, not just art, but cubism is kind of purely a painting thing. And maybe sculpture; I don't know. Maybe someone will need to invent cubist music. I'm certainly not qualified to do so.
"Knowledge" could work too. After all, it's well-known (however clichéd) that knowledge is power, so that could be the answer to the riddle.
People like to make fun of the song "I would do anything for love (but I won't do that)" (written by Jim Steinman, sung by Meat Loaf) because they apparently can't figure out what "that" is, even though it's right there in the fucking lyrics. Just goes to show, people don't listen to lyrics. They should, though. The good ones (such as anything written by Steinman) are poetry; the bad ones mean you're listening to a bad song and you should feel bad for liking it.
In this case, though, the elusive antecedent to the neuter pronoun may be explained in the full lyrics to whatever song that is (I'm sure someone will tell me, or I'll finally get curious and look it up myself), but that's irrelevant to this entry, which is mostly just me writing down whatever thought comes into my head.
Oh! That's it! Thought. Thought is the power that gives me the strength to survive.
Nah... it's really beer. |
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