Publisher Description

Just 23 years ago Benoit Mandelbrot published his famous picture of the Mandelbrot set, but that picture has changed our view of the mathematical and physical universe. In this text, Mandelbrot offers 25 papers from the past 25 years, many related to the famous inkblot figure. Of historical interest are some early images of this fractal object produced with a crude dot-matrix printer. The text includes some items not previously published.

Fractals are characterized by the repetition of similar patterns at ever-diminishing scales. Fractal geometry has emerged as one of the most exciting frontiers on the border between mathematics and information technology and can be seen in many of the swirling patterns produced by computer graphics. It has become a new tool for modeling in biology, geology, and other natural sciences. Anthropologists have observed that the patterns produced in different cultures can be characterized by specific design themes. In Europe and America, we often see cities laid out in a grid pattern of straight streets and right-angle corners. In contrast, traditional African settlements tend to use fractal structures-circles of circles of circular dwellings, rectangular walls enclosing ever-smaller rectangles, and streets in which broad avenues branch down to tiny footpaths with striking geometric repetition. These indigenous fractals are not limited to architecture; their recursive patterns echo throughout many disparate African designs and knowledge systems. Drawing on interviews with African designers, artists, and scientists, Ron Eglash investigates fractals in African architecture, traditional hairstyling, textiles, sculpture, painting, carving, metalwork, religion, games, practical craft, quantitative techniques, and symbolic systems. He also examines the political and social implications of the existence of African fractal geometry. His book makes a unique contribution to the study of mathematics, African culture, anthropology, and computer simulations.

Presents introductory and advanced topics in the field of computer graphics with mathematical descriptions and derivations. This book offers a balance of theory, applications, and code, and derives the underlying numerical methods and algorithms. It contains the classes in C# necessary for computer graphics, and offers an explanation of the code.

1-systems are a mathematical formalism which was proposed by Aristid 1indenmayer in 1968 as a foundation for an axiomatic theory of develop ment. The notion promptly attracted the attention of computer scientists, who investigated 1-systems from the viewpoint of formal language theory. This theoretical line of research was pursued very actively in the seventies, resulting in over one thousand publications. A different research direction was taken in 1984 by Alvy Ray Smith, who proposed 1-systems as a tool for synthesizing realistic images of plants and pointed out the relationship between 1-systems and the concept of fractals introduced by Benoit Mandel brot. The work by Smith inspired our studies of the application of 1-systems to computer graphics. Originally, we were interested in two problems: • Can 1-systems be used as a realistic model of plant species found in nature? • Can 1-systems be applied to generate images of a wide class of fractals? It turned out that both questions had affirmative answers. Subsequently we found that 1-systems could be applied to other areas, such as the generation of tilings, reproduction of a geometric art form from East India, and synthesis of musical scores based on an interpretation of fractals. This book collects our results related to the graphical applications of- systems. It is a corrected version of the notes which we prepared for the ACM SIGGRAPH '88 course on fractals.

What are fractals? Why are they such fun? How do you make one? Why is a dripping tap not as random as it seems? What is chaos? Is the Mandelbrot Set really the most complex object in mathematics? In this beautifully illustrated book, fractal-hunter Oliver Linton takes us on a fascinating journey into the mathematics of fractals and chaos, diving into many kinds of self- similar structures to reveal some of the most recently discovered and intriguing patterns in science and nature. "e;Fascinating"e; FINANCIAL TIMES. "e;Beautiful"e; LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. "e;Rich and Artful"e; THE LANCET. "e;Genuinely mind-expanding"e; FORTEAN TIMES. "e;Excellent"e; NEW SCIENTIST. "e;Stunning"e; NEW YORK TIMES. Small books, big ideas.

Turtle Geometry presents an innovative program of mathematical discovery that demonstrates how the effective use of personal computers can profoundly change the nature of a student's contact with mathematics. Using this book and a few simple computer programs, students can explore the properties of space by following an imaginary turtle across the screen. The concept of turtle geometry grew out of the Logo Group at MIT. Directed by Seymour Papert, author of Mindstorms, this group has done extensive work with preschool children, high school students and university undergraduates.