
The Islands of Benoit Mandelbrot
Fractals, Chaos, and the Materiality of Thinking
Nina Samuel(Editor)
Yale University Press
Published on 1. November 2012
Book
Paperback/Softback
176 pages
978-0-300-18643-7 (ISBN)
Description
Over the past few decades, the "pictorial turn" in the natural sciences, prompted by the computer's capacity to produce visual representations, has generated considerable theoretical interest. Poised between their materiality and the abstract level they are meant to convey, scientific images are always intersections of form and meaning. Benoit Mandelbrot (1924-2010), one of the best-known producers of digital images in scientific and industrial research, was particularly curious about the ways in which the materiality of scientific representation was able to influence the development of the ideas and abstractions the images embodied.
Using images and objects found in Mandelbrot's office, this book questions the relationship between the visual and scientific reasoning in fractal geometry and chaos theory, among the most popular fields to use digital scientific imagery in the past century. These unpublished materials offer new connections between the material world and that of mathematical ideas. Work by Adrien Douady and Otto Roessler provides historical depth to the analysis.
Distributed for the Bard Graduate Center, NY
Exhibition Schedule:
Bard Graduate Center(09/20/12-01/27/13)
Using images and objects found in Mandelbrot's office, this book questions the relationship between the visual and scientific reasoning in fractal geometry and chaos theory, among the most popular fields to use digital scientific imagery in the past century. These unpublished materials offer new connections between the material world and that of mathematical ideas. Work by Adrien Douady and Otto Roessler provides historical depth to the analysis.
Distributed for the Bard Graduate Center, NY
Exhibition Schedule:
Bard Graduate Center(09/20/12-01/27/13)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
Adult education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
160 color + b-w illus.
Dimensions
Height: 223 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
388 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-300-18643-7 (9780300186437)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Nina Samuel is a visiting assistant professor at the Bard Graduate Center and an associate member of Das Technische Bild in Germany.