Sunday, 17 October 2010
Mandelbrot- French/Polish?American?
Did you ever run out into the snow trying to catch a snowflake on your tongue? Can you remember the cold non-taste as it melted in an instant. Did you ever try to make a collection of snowflakes only to realise all you had in your hand was an eminently throwable snowball?
I remember all that and the impulse decision to take my class of school children armed with magnifying glasses, classroom microscopes and in one case some borrowed opera glasses in that winter of '75 in the hope of actually getting a good long look at a snowflake - just for fun!
Benoit Mandelbrot had announced to the world his theory about fractals and snowflakes and someone had published a black and white photograph on the wonders of the infinite variety of snowflakes, each one unique 'like us' I told them. Of course we failed but had great fun in trying - it made us realise, with some awe, that great minds had great ideas. Something to aspire to, even if 99% of us dont get anywhere near.
Never in a million years could I have described snowflakes, clouds, mountains or anything else like him but then geniuses are rare.
Benoit Mandelbrot will be remembered by me because he made me and a small group of English school children in the heart of England see, touch, taste snowflakes. Thank you Benoit.
'A fractal is "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole,"[''
I remember all that and the impulse decision to take my class of school children armed with magnifying glasses, classroom microscopes and in one case some borrowed opera glasses in that winter of '75 in the hope of actually getting a good long look at a snowflake - just for fun!
Benoit Mandelbrot had announced to the world his theory about fractals and snowflakes and someone had published a black and white photograph on the wonders of the infinite variety of snowflakes, each one unique 'like us' I told them. Of course we failed but had great fun in trying - it made us realise, with some awe, that great minds had great ideas. Something to aspire to, even if 99% of us dont get anywhere near.
Never in a million years could I have described snowflakes, clouds, mountains or anything else like him but then geniuses are rare.
Benoit Mandelbrot will be remembered by me because he made me and a small group of English school children in the heart of England see, touch, taste snowflakes. Thank you Benoit.
'A fractal is "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole,"[''
