| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name
 | Date | Lines | 
|---|
| 1309.1 |  | CSC32::J_MARSH | Svelte & Petite-nosed | Tue Oct 16 1990 16:24 | 2 | 
|  |     Isn't that equivalent to "is the Mandelbrot set simply connected?"
    I believe the answer is yes.
 | 
| 1309.2 |  | GUESS::DERAMO | Dan D'Eramo | Tue Oct 16 1990 17:16 | 5 | 
|  | >>    Isn't that equivalent to "is the Mandelbrot set simply connected?"
	More likely to its opposite.
	Dan
 | 
| 1309.3 | my vote is: no to .0, yes to .1 | SONG::WARMACK | I dictate what I moderate | Tue Oct 16 1990 18:08 | 16 | 
|  |     RE: .2
    
    That's exactly what I was thinking of saying.  However, I chickened
    out, due to the realization I couldn't personally back it up
    mathematically.  Another thing that made me balk was:  even if it is
    connected, what's to stop it from having an "island" not belonging to
    the set?  From the images that have been generated, it is easy to say
    that no such "island" exists inside of the set, but how can we REALLY
    know, unless it can be proven mathematically?  I think it might be
    possible to prove it, but don't ask me--I don't have a doctorate in
    math.
    
    I wonder if that is the point of the question in .0?  Sounds like a
    great challenge!!
    
    Andy
 | 
| 1309.4 |  | ALLVAX::JROTH | It's a bush recording... | Tue Oct 16 1990 18:31 | 22 | 
|  |     Hubbard and Douady proved that the boundary of the Mandelbrot set
    is a deformed circle which never "crosses" itself.  While there
    appear to be disconnected islands, these are attached to the main
    set by the boundary curve.  The curve becomes tangent to itself
    at points, but never meets itself transversally.
    This proof involves a potential theoretic limiting argument - one
    neat result is that the contours one sees in pictures are equipotentials
    that would result if the set were a charged conductor.
    The proof is in the paper
	A. Douady, J. Hubbard, "Iteration des polynomes quadratiques
	complexes", Comptes Rendus Paris Acad. Sci. 294, (1982) pp 123-126.
    They also explained some other neat stuff about the order of branching
    along the boundaries of the various parts of the set.
    They acknowledged that computer pictures were "decisive" in
    formulating their proofs.
    - Jim
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