Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-sdd!ucsdhub!celit!hutch
From: hutch@fps.com (Jim Hutchison)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: fractals as bad science
Message-ID: <4158@celit.fps.com>
Date: 21 Nov 89 18:43:47 GMT
References: <19544@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1619@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <1449@mrsvr.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@fps.com
Reply-To: hutch@fps.com (Jim Hutchison)
Organization: FPS Computing
Lines: 34

In <1449@mrsvr.UUCP> hallett@gemed.ge.com (Jeffrey A. Hallett) asks:
>In <1619@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) states:
>> And I think the problem it has  raised is  "how does this  relate to
>> the real world?" 

>But Bill, isn't that a problem with a whole bunch of studies?  Someone
>thinks of a great new thing to study and people are forced to ask, "So
>what?"  I've often bucked  at people who want  to study things for the
>sheer enjoyment of studying  it - would anyone  care to comment on the
>usefulness of study without a goal or use for the acquired knowledge?

Well, as for "study without a goal", it looks like the goal is to understand
this "strange thing".  The merit of that goal can probably be related to
what you are trying to accomplish in the process.

Anyway, enough of that, how about if I just tell you what i helped me to learn?
Certain "fractal images" show the rate at which an equation converges or
diverges from a given point.  This was incredibly helpful to me when I was
studying numerical methods.  "See the black, bad numbers. see the red, good
numbers."  Then you go and change the algorithm a bit and the shape changes,
because you caused the convergence to change.  O.k., maybe you don't want to
call *that* fractals.

How about the pattern of nerve impulses in a properly functioning heart?
There was a program on Chaos on a network educational TV program, in which
they showed 2 different graphs of nerve activity in the human heart.  The
nice ordered pattern was fibrilation (bad), the disordered (looking) model
was a normal functioning heart.  Seems that ordered pulses are not all that
productive, a nice sort-of-space-filling pattern is apparently much better.
Sorry to quote from TV, but I have no serious interest in medicine.

--
/*    Jim Hutchison   		{dcdwest,ucbvax}!ucsd!celerity!hutch  */
/*    Disclaimer:  I am not an official spokesman for FPS computing   */