It is an approximation of the locus of connectedness for the Julia sets of the family of functions f(z) = z^2 + lambda/(z^2) (rotated by pi/2). This is analogous to the standard Mandelbrot set (which applies to the family f(z) = z^2 + c), but holds additional fascination because for lambda values which are in the interior of one of the subdomains of the connectedness locus, the Julia set is a Universal Curve. To me this represents the structure unifying chaos (since Julia sets are chaotic) and order (since Universal Curves act as a sort of catalog of all planar curves).–Aaron
The tattoos keep coming, and so do the visitors. So far over 212,000 visitors have come to the Flickr set alone, which doesn’t count the post that started it all.
And since Dan Look has written many other papers about this family of rational maps, that’s why everyone I know think that this is Dan’s tattoo, not Aaron’s. ‘Fess up, Dan…
There’s lots of scope for cool science tattoos to be found in fractals.
What kind of tattoo is this? Does it have a meaning? I don’t understand any of this!!!
It does have a meaning….I am the second author on this paper (http://myslu.stlawu.edu/~dlook/Papers/sierp-symbolic.pdf) which, I believe, is the first paper with this image.
And since Dan Look has written many other papers about this family of rational maps, that’s why everyone I know think that this is Dan’s tattoo, not Aaron’s. ‘Fess up, Dan…