Mandelbrot Set What are Fractals? They're everywhere, those bright, weird, beautiful shapes called fractals. But what are they, really? Fractals are geometric figures, just like rectangles, circles and squares, but fractals have special properties that those figures do not have.
This is the new geometry, something very new to me but quite fascinating. Far from the conventional Pythagorean theorem that I learned in high school.
The mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot coined the word. Watching NOVA's Hunting the Hidden Dimension the other night and previously the interview with Mandelbrot and the renowned economist Nassim Nicholas Taleb on PBS, I marvel at the applications these fractals find in almost all the disciplines - art, science and nature. The concept of repetition, self-similarity, iterations, chain reactions and the resulting chaos all make sense as they apply to the financial crisis, the functions of the organs of the body and even measurements of Carbon Dioxide absorption in forest trees.
The amazing organization of things in life, the interrelations between physics, chemistry, economics, ecology and all the disciplines are beyond my understanding! Why would anyone even link fractal geometry to market behavior and the financial crisis? But it is, and it is mind-boggling. Mandelbrot and Taleb interview
Lucky are those who have studied these and the children who are now introduced to fractals at the elementary level. I wish I had that opportunity. Look around you and be amazed.
Lucky are those who have studied these and the children who are now introduced to fractals at the elementary level. I wish I had that opportunity. Look around you and be amazed.
But I guess it's never too late to learn.
