----- Original Message -----
From: "John Burgeson" <burgy@compuserve.com>
Cc: "ASA LISTSERV" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2000 6:51 PM
> Dave wrote:
>
> "First, Burgy, Glenn is right on the matter of Sierpinski's gasket. Note
> that the point moves half the distance toward another point. Even if we
get
> a large number of moves in the same direction, the moving point can only
> approach the fixed point. "
>
> If this happens, we get a straight line of course. I suppose one could
call
> this a very degraded form of the gasket case, in which case you would be
> correct.
>
> Was it not Lincoln who, when asked how many legs a dog would have if we
> called the tail a leg, answered wisly, "Four. Calling the tail a leg does
> not make it one
If this is what you mean by the gasket not appearing, then I would say that
the odds are so small as to be non-existent. In order for the gasket to
appear one must have a semi-random set of choices. If your random number
generator always gave out a 1 rather than a mixture of 1, 2, and 3, then I
would suggest that you don't have a random number generator. Say you are on
a statistical fluke of 1's. Would you believe in a statistical fluke of
20,000 ones being generated to the exclusion of 2 and 3? It takes about
20,000 iterations of the program before the pattern is discernable. I would
say that if you generated 20,000 1's, then you don't have a random number
generator--you programmed it wrong.
But that being said, even if you did generate 1's all the time with your
random number generator, then the particle is still constrained to move only
to certain places in the X-Y plane. To some areas it simply can't go
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution
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