Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Benoit Mandelbrot, Father of Fractals



Goodbye to the Father of Fractals | Inside NOVA | PBS

I was very sorry to hear about this. I am not sure which article referenced it, but I found a YouTube video dedicated to him. I particularly like the shot at 1:43 which reminds me of some of the Hubble deep space shots.




I wish they had raced along the separator at 0:46 or 1:23 for a bit. The idea of following a shrinking thing forever without hitting the bottom is very appealing.


I'm not sure about you, but I grew up looking at this algorithm and wondering what was possible. We would make changes to the position and wait quite a while to see the outcome. It is nice to be able to see a video exploring the depths.

Jacob

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Invited to "Waiting for Superman"

I follow Tim Ferris. A few days ago, he sent out an invitation to Waiting for Superman. I have been heads down building my new company and I figured this was actually part of the Superman franchise. I watched the trailer. Yikes!

I need to see this movie. According to the trailer, the US is near last among the industrialized nations in many areas (math being one.) The one area where US is the top: Confidence. Ouch. It is too easy to correlate what people say with the results these days. Confidence without follow through is a recipe for disaster.

Worried for the future and our children.
Jacob