Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!mitchell
From: mitchell@cbmvax.commodore.com (Fred Mitchell - PA)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: fractals as bad science
Message-ID: <9144@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 26 Dec 89 17:47:43 GMT
References: <119.256E54C5@uscacm.UUCP> <1247@becker.UUCP>
Reply-To: mitchell@cbmvax.commodore.com (Fred Mitchell - PA)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 29

The study of Fractals is a new science. As with anything new, there will
always be controversy. And perhaps that is one of the greatest intellectual
galvanizers of our time.

Fractals make an interesting study as a 'pure science'. Their application
to nature makes them even more wonderous. It gives you the ability to
classify certain phenomena in natue that would have previously been considered
'formless', such as clouds or mountains. To that end, Fractals have become
one more (and very powerful) tool by which we can measure our world. A sort
of 'yardstick' :-)

As for explaining the mechanism of certain phenomena, it can give fantastic
insights. For example, the development of the human embryo (and embryos in
general)- we can begin to understand how a HUGE amount of information
can be encoded by such a small dataset (DNA). While fractals is not the
end-all and be-all in this case, it gives hints as to the nature of the
fantastic and arcane mechanism involved. Only hints, mind you! :-)

Calculus has had centuries to become developed, as had other areas of
mathematics. Fractals (and the study of chaos, in general) is cumbersome
and damn-near impossible without the aid of the computer (would you spend
half a lifetime calculating a single instance of the Mandelbrot set, say
1K by !k? :-). Computers, in their speedy and compact present form, is itself
a very recent phenomenom- so lets give ourselves TIME to learn
about this mystery we've uncovered!

	-Mitchell
         mitchell@cbmvax.UUCP
	 To Life, Immortal.