My name is Mona Christensen-McCowen. My ID is currently my Social Security number. I will post it when I get it changed in the near future. I am crazy about mathematics, philosophy and logic even though I am not naturally skilled at any of these things. In addition to the prerequisites, I have taken 371, 485, and STP 326, 420, 421. I have C++ and Java programming experience. I am planning on becoming an actuary. I am minoring in Religion and am interested in investigating and questioning the complexities of life - whatever the avenue. I think this class will offer me some insight into the natural world and how we represent it. Meanwhile, my goal is to get a firmer grasp on what mathematics is, from a philosophical viewpoint.... a fundamental problem that motivates all this mess.

I have seen dynamic systems in disguise before and find the recursive definition difficult to automatically grasp. However, seeing the product of a few iterations makes it very clear how incredibly weird and wonderful this particular example is. I can guess that I am in for a lot of coincidences already.

Some questions I am already wondering...

Can similar situations be created with any orbital combination such that the series expands or contracts infinitely? (I am expecting this to be a yes, and provide the basis for the zooming.)

Do they all resemble the Cantor set? Or are there other sets that share similarities?

Is it ever the case that the series creates an empty set?

Do the pairs of endpoints provide the symmetry?

I have thumbed through the text. I don't know what I was expecting, but the technical language suggests a lot of proofs. I love proofs. (I'm being sarcastic.) I'm pretty excited though, because I realize that I am really going to get an indepth coverage of this topic... which I find interesting by itself.