fractal spirals

From: kevin doughty (k.at-symbl.zxcvb.dot.org_at_mathforum.org)
Date: 06/30/04 

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 01:32:23 +0000 (UTC)

Hello.
I have posted here before and I am dismayed not to be able to find my
old posts. I am an artist who has found an interesting and beautiful
graph. I am trying to find out what it is called or where I can read
about it. I guess I fit the crackpot model because I believe that it
is significant despite being told otherwise. I have been told that it
is extremely simple and that any self respecting mathematician could
do it. What I don't understand is why if it is so simple I cannot
find reference to this formula anywhere. So I continue to believe
that I discovered it. Please, please prove me wrong. If I had one
tenth of one percent of the attention Mr. Harris gets, I'm sure my
questions would be answered. I would also like to point out that my
formula hasn't changed since my first post, unlike Mr. Harris'.

The formula is modified from the parametric description of a circle
and is written as:
x = sum (i = 1 to n) (r/i) sin (i*theta + i^2*pi*variable)
y = sum (i = 1 to n) (r/i) cos (i*theta + i^2*pi*variable)
Thanks to Stewart Robert Hinsley for helping me convert my algorithm
to math terms.

I have beautiful quicktime movies at:
http://fractalspiral.zxcvb.org

If you have broadband please check them out:
http://zxcvb.org/fractalspiral/qt/qt1.html (1.2 mb)
http://zxcvb.org/fractalspiral/qt/qt2.html (3.0 mb)
http://zxcvb.org/fractalspiral/qt/qt3.html (4.2 mb)
http://zxcvb.org/fractalspiral/qt/qt4.html (572 kb)

The first is the simplest, the third is the prettiest, and the last
is a detail and the only one that truly looks fractal.

Thanks for your time.
-Kevin Doughty

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