Tupper's self-referential formula
- Introduction
Jeff Tupper, in his 2001 paper "Reliable Two-Dimensional Graphing Methods for Mathematical Formulae with Two Free Variables", shows a set of methods to graph equations and inequalities with two variables in the cartesian plane.
One of the examples of the paper, refers to the inequality:
That inequality, once plotted in the range 0 ≤ x ≤ 106 and k ≤ y ≤ k + 17 for k = 960, 939, 379, 918, 958, 884, 971, 672, 962, 127, 852, 754, 715, 004, 339, 660, 129, 306, 651, 505, 519, 271, 702, 802, 395, 266, 424, 689, 642, 842, 174, 350, 718, 121, 267, 153, 782, 770, 623, 355, 993, 237, 280, 874, 144, 307, 891, 325, 963, 941, 337, 723, 487, 857, 735, 749, 823, 926, 629, 715, 517, 173, 716, 995, 165, 232, 890, 538, 221, 612, 403, 238, 855, 866, 184, 013, 235, 585, 136, 048, 828, 693, 337, 902, 491, 454, 229, 288, 667, 081, 096, 184, 496, 091, 705, 183, 454, 067, 827, 731, 551, 705, 405, 381, 627, 380, 967, 602, 565, 625, 016, 981, 482, 083, 418, 783, 163, 849, 115, 590, 225, 610, 003, 652, 351, 370, 343, 874, 461, 848, 378, 737, 238, 198, 224, 849, 863, 465, 033, 159, 410, 054, 974, 700, 593, 138, 339, 226, 497, 249, 461, 751, 545, 728, 366, 702, 369, 745, 461, 014, 655, 997, 933, 798, 537, 483, 143, 786, 841, 806, 593, 422, 227, 898, 388, 722, 980, 000, 748, 404, 719 produces a drawing that visually mimics the inequality itself, hence it is called self-referential.
Although the inequality is intended to be drawn on the continuum of the cartesian plane, the drawing can be performed iterating over the integer values of both the horizontal and vertical ranges.
- Task
Make a drawing of the Tupper's formula, either using text, a matrix or creating an image.
This task requires arbitrary precision integer operations. If your language does not intrinsecally support that, you can use a library.
- Epilogue
The value of k is an encoding of the bitmap of the image, therefore any 17-width bitmap can be produced, using its associated encoded value as k.
- References
Fōrmulæ
Fōrmulæ programs are not textual, visualization/edition of programs is done showing/manipulating structures but not text. Moreover, there can be multiple visual representations of the same program. Even though it is possible to have textual representation —i.e. XML, JSON— they are intended for storage and transfer purposes more than visualization and edition.
Programs in Fōrmulæ are created/edited online in its website.
In this page you can see and run the program(s) related to this task and their results. You can also change either the programs or the parameters they are called with, for experimentation, but remember that these programs were created with the main purpose of showing a clear solution of the task, and they generally lack any kind of validation.
Solution
First, let us make the definition of k:
Tupper uses the notation mod(a, b) for the modulo operation, while Fōrmulæ uses the notation a Mod b. If we want to use the Tupper's formula exactly as it is, we can use the trick:
Now we can use a formula that looks exactly as Tupper's:
Visualization as a matrix. The following creates a matrix. Values for which inequality is true are shown as an opaque black color, otherwise they are shown as an transparent color.
Visualization as an image. In the following script, a function to draw the Tupper's formula is used to generate the image with different sizes, because the standard 1x1 pixel per unit results to be too small in order to be appreciated: