SERIES B // Mandelbrot

Starfish

€39

Magnified four hundred times. A star made of spirals, born from a single equation.

Colour

OriginalRoseInk

Format

Unframed printFramed print

Size

30 × 40 cm45 × 60 cm

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About the piece

One equation, infinitely many coastlines. Each picture is a window into the Mandelbrot set, magnified to places no eye has looked before. The Mandelbrot set explained

Drawn in code from seed: 00001
Series: Mandelbrot
Variant: Starfish
Palette: Cyan

Sizing

30 × 40 cm (12 × 16 in) or 45 × 60 cm (18 × 24 in), with a white border around the picture. Framed prints come in a black or natural wood frame (12 mm wide) with plexiglass, ready to hang.

Print & materials

Fine art matte paper (200 gsm) at 300 DPI, made to order. Every size is rendered natively - lines stay razor-sharp even at the largest size.

Shipping & payment

Free shipping worldwide. Every print is made to order within a few business days and shipped worldwide, packed to arrive flawless. You see the delivery estimate for your country when you order.

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Fine art paper

200 gsm enhanced matte

Printed on thick uncoated art paper at 300 DPI. Rich colour, razor-sharp lines, no glare.

Real wood frames

Black or natural wood

Wooden frame, 22 mm deep, with plexiglass that is lighter and safer than glass. Arrives ready to hang.

Made to order

Free shipping worldwide

Each print is made for you when you order and packed to arrive flawless, wherever you are.

The story

A star of spirals around −0.374 + 0.660i, at 1,500 steps per point. The number of arms on the edge of the set is not chance: the antenna of a period-n bulb branches into n arms. Starfish usually have five arms, for a completely different reason.

MATHEMATICS

The maths behind the picture

Every piece is computed, not drawn. These are the real equations and numbers from the program that made this exact piece.

Read the guide: The Mandelbrot set explained →

Equations

zₙ₊₁ = zₙ² + cz₀ = 0|zₙ| > 2  ⇒  c ∉ M

Parameters

Re(c) centre: -0.374043
Im(c) centre: 0.659793
Window width: 0.0025
Magnification ×: 1,240
Max iterations: 1,500
Rotation: -15.1°

Measured while drawing

Points computed: 1,533,070
Inside the set (%): 0
Mean escape: 90.8

What these numbers mean

This window is magnified 1,240 times, at a place where the set has no interior: everything you see is the thin filaments of the boundary itself. Points around them escape after 91 steps on average, and each point's colour is exactly that count.

HISTORY

Where this idea comes from

1918
Gaston Julia and Pierre Fatou study the iteration of complex functions, with no computers, only pencil and paper.
1978
Robert Brooks and Peter Matelski publish the first picture of the set, printed in characters on a line printer.
1980
Benoit Mandelbrot at IBM explores the set by computer and reveals its infinite complexity. He had coined the word "fractal" in 1975.
1982
Adrien Douady and John Hubbard prove the set is connected and name it after Mandelbrot.

In nature

Ferns, romanesco cauliflower and a sea coast share the property of the set's edge: the part looks like the whole. In 1967 Mandelbrot asked how long the coast of Britain is. The answer depends on how finely you measure.