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From: jbuck@epicen.UUCP (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Re: Fractals & Chaos
Message-ID: <243@epicen.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 12-Oct-85 01:06:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: epicen.243
Posted: Sat Oct 12 01:06:41 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 15-Oct-85 06:54:32 EDT
References: <12113@rochester.UUCP>
Reply-To: jbuck@epicen.UUCP (Joe Buck)
Organization: Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 21

In article <12113@rochester.UUCP> nemo@rochester.UUCP (Wolfe) writes:
>...								Does
>anyone know more about this field (chaos) or the relationship between
>the mathematics they study and fractals?  It seems that the hope I 
>heard expressed that fractals could open up understanding of many hitherto
>dficult fields (like metal crystalization, etc) is already a fact (by
>chaos in economics, fluid flow, laser irregularities, etc).
>Nemo

That's exactly what Benoit Mandelbrot, the man who coined the term
"fractal", has tried to do. I recommend reading his books "Fractals:
Form, Chance, and Dimension" and "The Fractal Geometry of Nature".
He shows how fractals may apply not only to the shape of mountains,
continents, etc. but to the distribution of stars and galaxies, to
fluid turbulence, the distribution of errors on a bursty channel,
the behavior of a fluid near the critical point, and more, though
he just touches on each field.
-- 
Joe Buck				|  Entropic Processing, Inc.
UUCP: {ucbvax,ihnp4}!dual!epicen!jbuck  |  10011 N. Foothill Blvd.
ARPA: dual!epicen!jbuck@BERKELEY.ARPA   |  Cupertino, CA 95014