Yes, but Eglash addresses this directly. Not in all, but in some of the instances, people had designed things quite consciously, even (he says) using "algorithms," to get the desired result. Now, that may not be a general understanding of fractals, but I think it counts as an understanding of a particular kind of fractal pattern.
Compare to Pythagoras (or, rather, the Pythagoreans), who captured one form of the triangle law (for the right triangle), but not the fully general cosine principle that mathematicians call the "Pythagorean Law" today. Chris ============ Paul Brandon wrote: > > > Using patterns that may be described by the mathematics of fractals is > not the same thing as developing the mathematical description > necessary to understand what a fractal IS. > > On Dec 29, 2008, at 7:32 PM, Christopher D. Green wrote: > >> Michael Sylvester will like this in particular (but so will lots of >> other TIPSters). >> It turns out that Africans probably did invent fractals before >> Europeans. >> See the lecture: >> http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ron_eglash_on_african_fractals.html > > Paul Brandon > Emeritus Professor of Psychology > Minnesota State University, Mankato > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
