Is this Batman equation for real?

As Willie Wong observed, including an expression of the form $\displaystyle \frac{|\alpha|}{\alpha}$ is a way of ensuring that $\alpha > 0$. (As $\sqrt{|\alpha|/\alpha}$ is $1$ if $\alpha > 0$ and non-real if $\alpha < 0$.)


The ellipse $\displaystyle \left( \frac{x}{7} \right)^{2} + \left( \frac{y}{3} \right)^{2} - 1 = 0$ looks like this:

ellipse

So the curve $\left( \frac{x}{7} \right)^{2}\sqrt{\frac{\left| \left| x \right|-3 \right|}{\left| x \right|-3}} + \left( \frac{y}{3} \right)^{2}\sqrt{\frac{\left| y+3\frac{\sqrt{33}}{7} \right|}{y+3\frac{\sqrt{33}}{7}}} - 1 = 0$ is the above ellipse, in the region where $|x|>3$ and $y > -3\sqrt{33}/7$:

ellipse cut

That's the first factor.


The second factor is quite ingeniously done. The curve $\left| \frac{x}{2} \right|\; -\; \frac{\left( 3\sqrt{33}-7 \right)}{112}x^{2}\; -\; 3\; +\; \sqrt{1-\left( \left| \left| x \right|-2 \right|-1 \right)^{2}}-y=0$ looks like:

second factor

This is got by adding $y = \left| \frac{x}{2} \right| - \frac{\left( 3\sqrt{33}-7 \right)}{112}x^{2} - 3$, a parabola on the positive-x side, reflected:

second factor first term

and $y = \sqrt{1-\left( \left| \left| x \right|-2 \right|-1 \right)^{2}}$, the upper halves of the four circles $\left( \left| \left| x \right|-2 \right|-1 \right)^2 + y^2 = 1$:

second factor second term


The third factor $9\sqrt{\frac{\left( \left| \left( 1-\left| x \right| \right)\left( \left| x \right|-.75 \right) \right| \right)}{\left( 1-\left| x \right| \right)\left( \left| x \right|-.75 \right)}}\; -\; 8\left| x \right|\; -\; y\; =\; 0$ is just the pair of lines y = 9 - 8|x|:

Third factor without cut

truncated to the region $0.75 < |x| < 1$.


Similarly, the fourth factor $3\left| x \right|\; +\; .75\sqrt{\left( \frac{\left| \left( .75-\left| x \right| \right)\left( \left| x \right|-.5 \right) \right|}{\left( .75-\left| x \right| \right)\left( \left| x \right|-.5 \right)} \right)}\; -\; y\; =\; 0$ is the pair of lines $y = 3|x| + 0.75$:

fourth factor without cut

truncated to the region $0.5 < |x| < 0.75$.


The fifth factor $2.25\sqrt{\frac{\left| \left( .5-x \right)\left( x+.5 \right) \right|}{\left( .5-x \right)\left( x+.5 \right)}}\; -\; y\; =\; 0$ is the line $y = 2.25$ truncated to $-0.5 < x < 0.5$.


Finally, $\frac{6\sqrt{10}}{7}\; +\; \left( 1.5\; -\; .5\left| x \right| \right)\; -\; \frac{\left( 6\sqrt{10} \right)}{14}\sqrt{4-\left( \left| x \right|-1 \right)^{2}}\; -\; y\; =\; 0$ looks like:

sixth factor without cut

so the sixth factor $\frac{6\sqrt{10}}{7}\; +\; \left( 1.5\; -\; .5\left| x \right| \right)\sqrt{\frac{\left| \left| x \right|-1 \right|}{\left| x \right|-1}}\; -\; \frac{\left( 6\sqrt{10} \right)}{14}\sqrt{4-\left( \left| x \right|-1 \right)^{2}}\; -\; y\; =\; 0$ looks like

sixth factor


As a product of factors is $0$ iff any one of them is $0$, multiplying these six factors puts the curves together, giving: (the software, Grapher.app, chokes a bit on the third factor, and entirely on the fourth)

Wholly Batman


You may be able to see more easily the correspondences between the equations and the graph through the following picture which is from the link I got after a curious search on Google(link broken now):

enter image description here


Here's what I got from the equation using Maple...

enter image description here