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General => Open Discussion => Topic started by: littlerocketstudios on January 19, 2010, 08:24:57 AM

Title: Ted video: african fractals !
Post by: littlerocketstudios on January 19, 2010, 08:24:57 AM
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ron_eglash_on_african_fractals.html

"Ethno-mathematician" Ron Eglash is the author of African Fractals, a book that examines the fractal patterns underpinning architecture, art and design in many parts of Africa. By looking at aerial-view photos -- and then following up with detailed research on the ground -- Eglash discovered that many African villages are purposely laid out to form perfect fractals, with self-similar shapes repeated in the rooms of the house, and the house itself, and the clusters of houses in the village, in mathematically predictable patterns.

As he puts it: "When Europeans first came to Africa, they considered the architecture very disorganized and thus primitive. It never occurred to them that the Africans might have been using a form of mathematics that they hadn't even discovered yet."
Title: Re: Ted video: african fractals !
Post by: matrix2003 on January 19, 2010, 09:41:20 AM
Thank you for that. I think most of us here are all quite fascinated by fractal designs.
After I had my 'Mandelbrot Set' awakening moment .... I looked at everything differently.
  - Bill .
Title: Re: Ted video: african fractals !
Post by: Kadri on January 19, 2010, 09:51:40 AM
Thanks for the video . The site is one of the most i like  :)

Kadri.