mdbtxt1
mdbtxt2
Proceed to Safety

Island Mu-Molecule    

Robert P. Munafo, 2012 Aug 18.



Definition :
Any mu-molecule that is not the continent.

This use of the word 'island' was introduced by Benoit Mandelbrot in his description of the Mandelbrot set in The Fractal Geometry of Nature.

Island Mu-Molecules are usually the third thing one notices (after the continent itself and the filaments; see exploring). It is an unexpected surprise: "Hey! there are little Mandelbrot Sets here!" and the dedicated explorer will then find that the islands are all miniatures of the entire Mandelbrot Set down to the last filament. See the largest islands entry for a list.

It is also noticed fairly early on that the islands are everywhere, and most of them are very small and difficult to find. As Milnor stated:

Every neighborhood of a point on the boundary of the Mandelbrot set contains infinitely many embedded copies of the Mandelbrot Set.

In other words, every tiniest bit of filament has infinitely many islands embedded in it, although most are very tiny.

The islands are at the center of most of the interesting filament features, including the filament bifurcation that makes the external angles visible, and embedded Julia sets.

Colloquial names for island mu-molecules: Bug, Island, Mandelbrotie, Minibrot.

The largest islands are R2F(1/2B1)S and R2F(1/3B1)S; see the largest islands article for more.

Images and Links


R2F(1/2B1)S, the largest island

A cluster of islands in the R2.2/5 radical

R2F(1/15B1)S, located in the cusp R2.C(0), a highly distorted island

See Also

See also Enumeration of Features.


revisions: 20100908 oldest on record; 20120818 add images and links




From the Mandelbrot Set Glossary and Encyclopedia, by Robert Munafo, (c) 1987-2024.

Mu-ency main pageindexrecent changesDEMZ


Robert Munafo's home pages on AWS    © 1996-2024 Robert P. Munafo.    about    contact
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Details here.

This page was written in the "embarrassingly readable" markup language RHTF, and was last updated on 2023 Jul 03. s.27