For some reason fractals have never excited me as much as they do most people. Yeah, there's lots of pretty pictures, but I don't see the math very clearly. (I've had a similar reaction to the notion of 'ethnomathematics' - great idea, but the material is often flimsy.) Ron Eglash's TED talk satisfies me on both accounts - I can see the math!
[Hat tip to another Dan, who blogs at Math for Love, for his pointer to this video and much more!]
I think fractals are attractive to people in some poetic sort of way -- the hope that they might be metaphors. Perhaps?
ReplyDeleteOT: Thanks for the tip on Dropbox. It's good. I don't know that I'd use it to back up a whole HD (yet), but maybe eventually. Anyway I like it a lot and you've changed my world.
Ron Eglash website on these is awesome! Thanks for the pointer!
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