The Mandelbrot set is made up of points plotted on a complex plane to form a fractal: a striking shape or form in which each part is actually a miniature copy of the whole. The incredibly dazzling imagery hidden in the Mandelbrot Set was possible to view in the 1500s thanks to Rafael Bombelli's understanding of imaginary numbers -- but it wasn't until Benoit Mandelbrot and others started exploring fractals with the aid of computers that the secret universe was revealed.



Now that we know it exists, we can approach it in a more primitive manner: by hand. Here is a method of viewing a crude rendering of the set, just for the purpose of understanding how it's done; you will then gain a much deeper appreciation for the renderings that you can make using the many open-source computer programs available, or that you can view on CD-ROM and DVD.