Friday, November 21, 2008

Birthday Benoit Mandelbrot

Yesterday was the birthday of Benoit Mandelbrot.  He is the father of modern fractal geometry.  The picture shown is the initial view of the Mandelbrot set.


Fractal Geometry has been taken on the seemingly daughnting task of calculating natural phenomena.  Natural fractals include mountains, coastlines, river basins, plans, blood vessels, lungs, the clustering of galaxies, music, painting, and stock market prices.

Remember earlier in this blog, science fiction writer and mathmetician Rudy Rucker refers to these complex, non-repeating computations as "gnarly".  
Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.  --Mandelbrot, Introduction to The Fractal Geometry of Nature

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