Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T10:42:48.878Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

Preface

Denny Gulick
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
Jon Scott
Affiliation:
Montgomery College
Get access

Summary

Fractals came onto the stage in the 1970's with the emergence of the Mandelbrot set, with its incredibly complicated and interesting boundary. During the 1980's a number of books appeared, including most especially by Mandelbrot, Barnsley and Devaney, that gave a mathematical background for fractals that made fractals accessible to both students and teachers. More recently, as computers and their users have become more sophisticated, the domain of fractals has broadened, from art to scientific application to mathematical analysis. In particular, students in high school as well as college are often introduced to fractals and fractal concepts. The present volume includes six essays related to fractals, with perspectives different enough to give you a taste of the breadth of the subject.

Each essay is self-contained and expository. Moreover, each of the essays is intended to be accessible to a broad audience that includes college teachers, high school teachers, advanced undergraduate students, and others who wish to learn or teach about topics in fractals that are not regularly in textbooks on fractals.

Next is a brief overview of each essay; together these overviews should give you quite different views of the topic of fractals.

volume begins with “Mathscapes—Fractal Geometry,” by Anne M. Burns. Burns, who is an artist as well as a mathematician, discusses several ways of modeling on the computer such fractal objects as plant growth and trees, clouds and mountains. The algorithms that Burns uses to create such fascinating and beautiful fractal scenery include stochastic matrices, simple recursion, and a probabilistic method, all of which are accessible to students in a variety of courses from mathematics to programming to graphics.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Beauty of Fractals
Six Different Views
, pp. vii - viii
Publisher: Mathematical Association of America
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×