T M Vasudevan (Independent Researcher)

Published in astro.philica.com

Observation
This is an attempt to create the plot of a typical spiral galaxy by using a fractal function. The fractal function in polar coordinates, which is used for this purpose, is given below. In the below equation “r” stands for the radial distance with respect to the origin of the coordinate system and “theta” stands for the angle of revolution (actually, it would be more appropriate to call it evolution as both space as well as time domains are involved). This plot clearly hints at “bar” formation in spiral galaxies.

r = +/- (1+1.414sin(theta)cos(theta)-0.5cos(theta)cos(theta))^(1/6)exp(-0.4714(theta))

For plotting this kind of polar functions the mathematical toolkit, namely FOOPLOT, is found to be very useful. The link for FOOPLOT is http://fooplot.com/

By changing the values of the coefficients +1.414 & -0.5, to account for the effects of Gravitation or any other external influence, galaxy plots which are different from one another can be created. The above fractal function is not just an empirical formula; rather it is a derived function. In fact the above function was derived from equation (27) of the article No.21 (An Attempt on TOE, Part-I) already published in Philica, by the present author, on 28th September, 2006.

References
Article No.21 , An Attempt on TOE ( Part-I) published in Philica, by the present author, on 28th September, 2006

Information about this Observation
This Observation has not yet been peer-reviewed
This Observation was published on 18th March, 2009 at 06:10:02 and has been viewed 1918 times.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

The full citation for this Observation is: Vasudevan, T. (2009). Fractal representation of a Typical Spiral Galaxy (E.g., Milky Way). PHILICA.COM Observation number 52.