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Showing posts from December, 2010

1.8 Sustainability and the Fractal

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Sustainability and the fractal: This entry follows on from my fractal growth and development entries, which were published earlier. There is never one snowflake alike, but there are snowflakes. The fractal offers insights and helps us understand growth and development, change and evolution. It should also help us understand sustainability . It should clarify what sustainability is. Is it real? Is it possible? Is it an illusion, or is it a delusion? Fractals, by definition, are patterns that show: 'same' but 'different' or regular irregularity - at all scales. Fractals support sustainability in one way but not in another or the way we currently associate sustainability with keeping the environment or the economy today without compromising future generations. It may be that the notion of sustainability is (mathematically) nonsense. Here's why. Fractals and sustainability analysis To see why sustainability is a false statement and doesn't hold—at least in

On fractals and statistics

Just what's on my mind today: What is the connection between the Mandelbrot set and the bell-shaped normal distribution curve, or any distribution for that matter? I have been thinking about this for some time. I am surprised that fractals are not used to describe patterns. It came to me today while I was biking to work: Fractals are objects that describe the object through all scales; normal distributions or statistics need a parameter to function. For example, Stars are fractal and will not distribute without a parameter: when we add, say, star size, star colour, or distance, we get a distribution. So, I believe there is a very close relationship between the two. What is interesting is that distribution patterns are very fractal and absolutely universal. It is a goal of mine to understand this more, for there is more to it. Update Feb 2020 I wrote the above some time ago, but it is coming back to me now as I know more and have more questions. I am talking about the diffe

The (fractal) God Illusion - the feeling of being watched.

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The (fractal) God Illusion: This applies to the Koch Curve zoom and links to my early blog on Inflation. The following video inspired me for this insight, but the insight actually came to me while waiting in a doctor's surgery - funny enough. This is a great video on fractals and the Mandelbrot set. At 4:20, Arthur C. Clark explains the infinite size of the Mandelbrot set. Two people stand at the edge of the fractal ( the Koch Snowflake), pairing into it - as if it were a tunnel or a computer screen. What if one of the people (the walker) could walk out into the zoom while the other stayed out and watched (the viewer)? For the walker, it would be like walking into a tunnel, and the viewer would see him or her get smaller and smaller as they walk in. Now, what if the walker were to stop, turn, and look behind. What would they see? A tunnel - with the viewer at the entrance, very small, and watching? NO. They would see infinity: they would see the infinite eye of the v