Product Description
Third and final volume focuses upon the images of fractals that for many people have provided a compelling lure into an investigation of the intricate properties embedded within them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Fractals for the Classroom, Book I
I was needing the book quickly and the seller sent it priority without charging me extra.Very Nice!!I used the book to do professional development with some high school teachers.

Chaos and fractals unleashed
If the words fractals, chaos and dynamical systems are attractive fixed points for your mind, go ahead. This is a book about this stuff. The three authors really unleash those topics, using numerous intriguing examples.The mathematical level is elementary. There is a good treatment bothmathematical and heuristic of the discrete dynamical system generated bythe logistic equation, this icon of the chaos and fractals theory. At eachchapter's end there is a program written in old-fashioned Basic language,but the skeleton may be recycled in, say, Mathematica or Matlab. ... Read more

Product Description
This book will allow you to travel through time and space. To facilitate your journey, the editor has scoured the four corners of the earth in a quest for unusual people and their fascinating patterns. From Mozambique, to Asia, to many European countries, the contributors to The Pattern Book include world-famous cancer researchers, little-known artists and eclectirc computer program-mers. Some of the patterns are ultramodern, while others are centuries old. Many of the patterns are drawn from the universe of mathematics. Computer recipes are scattered throughout.

Although the emphasis is on computer-generated patterns, the book is informal and the intended audience spans several fields. The emphasis is on the fun that the true pattern lover finds in doing, rather than in reading about the doing! The book is organized into three main parts: Representing Nature (for those patterns which describe or show real physical phenomena, e.g., visualizations of protein mo!tion, sea lilies, etc.), Mathematics and Symmetry (for those patterns which describe or show mathematical behavior, e.g. fractals), and Human Art (for those patterns which are artistic works of humans and made without the aid of a computer, e.g. Moslem tiling patterns.) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Better for Mathematicians
As an artist, I had hoped this book would have presented, on equal footing, mathematics and natural/artistic elements. I ordered it based upon a review that reflected such, but was a bit disappointed to find it was definitely more formulaic based.However, that having been said, there were a few good things I extracted from this book, just not as much as I would have liked based upon the review. Would I recommend this book to a fellow artist? Likely not. To a math/science colleague...definitely. I think Gombrich is a better bet for the artist.

A natural first book for one interested in fractals
Fractals can be found everywhere, and Clifford Pickover has done a good job in selecting some of the best. The range of the collection is considerable, from "Wood Pattern" to "Trajectories of a Neural Network Quantizer in Rhythm Space." All possess a simplistic beauty that justifies the presence of the word art in the title.
Such creations, possessing enormous complexity from very simple origins, truly forces us to stretch our imaginations. All of the generation processes are very easy to understand, and some modifications for additional exploration are obvious.
One more in the collection of works devoted to fractals, this book ranks among the easiest to understand. A natural first book for those interested in fractals as objects of mathematical study or art.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission. ... Read more

Product Description
For C programmers, this provides readers with the necessary background to investigate and create fractals on the PC. A source code for all the fractals discussed in the book is included. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Non-practicle experience
This is a real cool book, not really any application for me professionally, but it was fun to try to make the examples. It was a fun exercise in a completely different realm of C than I am used to. Kind of like a cross-word puzzle based on a genre you were totally unfamiliar with, but A fun learning process just the same. Had I seen the picture of the Author prior to purchasing this book I would have clearly known that this was a science text as he just has that "scientist" look about him. I would recommend this to any C programmer that has extra time on their hands, really loves C and wants to try something way out there more on the scientific side of C or if fractal programming does apply to your profession. ... Read more

Product Description
Reviews"Marvellous Hairy is a weird little beast, a blending of the anything-for-a-laugh mentality of Douglas Adams with the experimental abandon of early Philip K. Dick. Is it satire? Science fiction? A piercing exploration into the nature of being? Good-natured sex romp? . . . Mark is a near-hopeless task." --Corey Redekop, Author of Shelf Monkey Product DescriptionSo, hair is sprouting in unspeakable places and you can no longer carry a tune, but if you're a surrealistic artiste with an addiction to Freudian mythology and guilt-free sex, turning into a monkey has its upsides. Nick Motbot may be evolving as a novelist, but his friends aren't too sure about his DNA. At least, not since Gargantuan Enterprises started experimenting with it. Once they figure out what's happening to him, they decide to set things right. Marvellous Hairy is a satirical novel about a group of friends sticking it to the man the only way they know how, with equal parts grain alcohol and applied Chaos Theory. Part literary fun-ride and part slapstick comedy, Marvellous Hairy about the power of friendship and love, the evils of power, and the dangers of letting corrupt CEOs run our world. But most importantly, it's about how we have to get in touch with our fun-loving inner monkeys. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (34)

A Simply Marvelous Novel!
This book was simply a joyous romp about life, love, and of course monkeys! When reading it Douglas Adams, Ron Goulart, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and Fredric Brown all came to mind, and those are not names I throw around lightly- the book is that good folks!

The book starts out at a wedding ceremony that is soon turned into chaos when the Reverend and his accomplice, an aspiring writer, let loose a horde of monkeys and a Komodo Dragon. I knew from that completely absurd yet sublime beginning I could well fall in love with such a tale, and the author did not disappoint me one iota! This strange and hilarious novel tells the tale of a rag tag group of friends, and when one of the group suddenly starts devolving into a monkey, they band together and with otherworldly help attempt to take down the giant evil corporation that is responsible (of course they end up thwarting a global domination attempt in the process).

This book truly has it all: a drug crazed Reverend/Doctor that could have given Hunter S. Thompson a run for his money, a novelist working on his surreal opus, action, adventure, love, ghosts, a protagonist you actually care about, two hilariously inept would be villains, a dastardly megalomanical master villains, kidnappings, drugs, sex, and did I mention monkeys?


All in all if you want to read a truly great and rollicking (love using that word, and it is very apt here) adventure that will have you laughing out loud one minute, the next debating the psychological make up of the crazy human race, well simply stop reading this review and buy this book today- you will not be disappointed in the least.

Gelati's Scoop
Check it out, a novel that makes one question many things in our society today and uses the vehicle of comedy and the bizarre to get us there. Laugh while we think, I enjoy that. Yes, it is time to release the monkeys. Marvellous Hairy is a sincere novel that is totally different than anything I have read in a while. It is a seriously disjointed narrative wrapped around a wonderful array of colorful characters that takes the reader on a thought provoking ride through corporate America, greed, and a host of other things. Here is the synopsis from the back cover, but trust me, the description just barely scratches the surface on this novel:
"Release your inner Monkey! So hair is sprouting in unspeakable places and you can no longer carry a tune, but if you're a surrealistic artiste with an addition to Freudian mythology and guilt-free sex, turning into a monkey has its upsides. Nick Motbot may be evolving as a novelist, but his friends aren't too sure about his DNA- at least not since Gargantuan Enterprises started experimenting with it. And once they figure out what's happening to him, they decide to set things right. Marvellous Hairy is a fabulist satire about a group of friends sticking it to the man the only way they know how, with equal parts grain alcohol and applied Chaos theory."
I think you can see that this is one seriously demented and out there plotline. Best thing about it is if you put aside a few things, this novel made me laugh, chuckle and smile. The narrative was a bit choppy, the story was a mix of many different types of novels, including sci-fi, action, thriller, mystery, and a medical story, but it all was mashed together in a way that was coherent and fun. It is what it is and that is a good character driven comedy piece with a bunch of other stuff mixed in. I don't have anything that comes to mind to compare it to, nor would I want to. Mark Rayner has created a very unique novel with a very special flavor and vibe to it. Pick this up and when you need a good laugh, give Marvellous Hairy a read and let the laughs and smiles come on out. Here is a link to the book & some more info from Mark:
There's a free podcast and an excerpt linked off the book page, if people want to give it a try: [...] Also, my current preoccupation is Canada Reads, check it out!!
Here is the Amazon book link:
[...]

What are you reading today? Check us out and become our friend on Facebook & Linkedin. Go to Goodreads and become our friend there and suggest books for us to read and post on. You can also follow us on Twitter, and the Gelati's Scoop Facebook Fan Page. Did you know you can shop directly on Amazon by clicking the Gelati's Store Tab on our blog?Thanks for stopping by today; We will see you tomorrow. Have a great day. [...]

Excellent
Marvellous Hairy is well worth the time investment.Not a terribly long book I found it grabbed me more as I got to know the characters and their dilemmas.Humor drives the book and mostly comes from the interaction of the colorful characters as they try to make sense of the world they live in.Modern issues such as abuse of corporate power, and out of control technology suddenly get you thinking about what you would do if faced with similiar scenarios.I found the ethical questions posed very interesting and Rayner leaves the reader to decide what actions make the most sense.Personally I'm looking forward to the next novel from Mr. Rayner.

Get Your Monkey On!
Mark A. Rayner is an author with a fantastical sense of humor and a dangerous imagination. Part big corporation take-down, part scientific bizarro experimentation, this novel is perfect for fans of the strange and unlikely!

Full of mayhem, madness, and monkey-business, Marvellous Hairy takes the reader on a roller coaster of a ride through the many layered friendships of Nick, a man who is willing to sell his body to science for a couple of bucks; Max, a doctor who takes recreational drug use to the next level; Hot Helena, who works as a VP for Gargantuan Enterprises and it's slightly insane head honcho Ted; and our narrator Rob, BFF to Nick, our monkey man in the making.

Mix in some unauthorized highly secretive genetic manipulation, a ghost haunting, two kidnappings, and a pair of unstable drug dealers, and you now have a recipe for disaster.

While reading the proof for the novel, which was signed and sent to me by the author upon my request for review, I found myself overlooking the editing issues (hence the reason I noted it was a proof copy) and thoroughly enjoying the storyline.

The back cover blurb leads the reader to believe the novels sole plot is to follow Nick Motbot through his transformation from man into monkey, however there really is soooo much more to it than that.

Rob worked as a temp on a super secret scientific project involving a weather satellite at Gargantuan Enterprises, when he discovers his best friend Nick has signed on with the same company for some experimental testing. Concerned for his friends well-being, and increasingly strange behavior, Rob enlists the help of the company's VP of Marketing, and his old college buddy Helena, to root around and dig up information on the classified test.

The group of friends stumble upon some pretty unethical and downright scary stuff, and decide to take matters into their hands - Kidnap the CEO, publicize what they know to bring the company crashing down around his knees, and hopefully save their banana-loving, bow-legged, devolving buddy at the same time.

How can you NOT want to read this??

I want to just take a moment to clarify something:

The novel is marketed as "Literary Fiction" under the subcategory "Fabulist Satire" (as found on the back of the book), and I think it's for good reason. Readers who like straight up, no nonsense fiction may find themselves confused and frustrated with the crazy capers and high-jinx that populate this novel. Those readers who love to indulge in a good old medical mystery novel might find themselves tsk-ing and tut-ing over the numerous other story lines that flow throughout the book.


That being said, Rayner's novel is romping good fun, and begs you to pay more attention to your inner monkey and lizard - the normal animalistic parts of the human psyche that we force into submission! Everyone... It's time to "Release the Monkeys"!!!

3.5 stars (Strongly recommended for readers familiar with genre)

enjoyable journey
Marvellous Hariy was an enjoyable journey. Mark A. Rayner has created a world that Tom Stoppard would love to roam in. If you enjoy Neil Gaiman, you will enjoy this five act book with all the laughs of Christopher Moore. Check it out! ... Read more

Product Description
Simple mathematical formulas are transformed intostrikingly beautiful computer generated designs. The dynamic interplaybetween order and chaos is explored in 350 color images in this uniquecoffee table book that explains the mechanics of mathematicalart. Berkowitz is perhaps the world's most widely recognized fractalartist. Fractal Cosmos is the first art book to feature fractalimagery and the largest collection of fractal art published anywhere. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

333 color plates, graphical potential of fractals, album-like
This unique album-like beautifully published on 212 pages of glossy paper includes 333 color plates of computer generated images of fractals and fractal compositions. They reveal the graphical potential of fractals and are a visual introduction to their graphical application. Most of them could be found in a smaller size on the Web using the keyword lifesmith. The book's text is concise and includes a step-by-step explanation that extends from a typical school knowledge. Its simple instructions allow to recreate the fractals on computer. The whole content is easily accessible to non-experts, and it is good even for just casual browsing through. The book comprises an introduction to fractals on 4 pages; 5 chapters of images with a different type of fractals and one page description in each; 4 appendices dedicated to generating fractals (5 pages), bibliography (2 pages), formulae (1), and fractal data for each plate except the compositions (47 pages); and an index of equations on 5 pages.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction to Fractals 1-1
CHAPTER TWO
Mandeibrot/Julia Set Fractals of the Equation f(z) = z2 + c 2-1
CHAPTER THREE
Mandeibrot/Julia Set Fractals of Polynomials, Powers,
Roots, and Rational Expressions 3-1
CHAPTER FOUR
Mandeibrot/Julia Set Fractals of Exponentials, Logarithms,
Trigonometrics, and Combinations Thereof 4-1
CHAPTER FIVE
Three-Dimensional Fractal Compositions 5-1
CHAPTER SIX
Special Image Studies in Fractals 6-1
APPENDIX A
Generating Julia Set Fractals A-1
APPENDIX B
Selected Bibliography B-1
APPENDIX C
Important Formulae for Complex Numbers C-1
APPENDIX D
Supplemental Fractal Data for Color Plates D-1
INDEX BY EQUATION I-1

Great intro to fractals
There's not a lot of easily understandable information, but WOW!The pictures are great!

math and art
This is a cool book. I tutor middle school students in math and have used this to help them think outside the box. Math can be used to describe everything around us. This book has beautiful color photos of unique calculus graphs.The kids are amazed by the beauty of these designs.

A fractal survey with beauty, intrigue and educational value
I'm really pleased with this book. To me, this is the IDEAL coffee table book on fractals.

Chapter one is the obligatory brief history of fractal image generation, including Mandelbrot, population growth, and citing quite a few popular books on the subject.

The heart of the book is the eye candy, presented in bright colors on high quality paper, with a bare minimum of mathematical labeling to maximize the "art appreciation" aspect of the viewing. This is divided into 5 chapters of somewhat like families of fractals, with brief but informative introductions. If you want a lot of beautiful fractal images that vary widely - you'll certainly get that here.

Chapter 2 gives many images of the Mandelbrot set. Chapter 3 explores various polynomials, powers, roots, and rational expressions. This clearly answered my early layman's question "What about other types of simple equations?" Chapter 4 then goes into exponentials, logarithms, trigonometrics, and various combinations. Chapter 5 then shows 3-d compositions, with many fractal skies, mountains, trees, and landscapes, plus the fractal spheres looking so much like moons or planets. Finally, chapter 6 does some interesting "studies" where you get treated to a page at a time of (6) images with very similar equations, where he alters some variable. Examples: the amount of zooming (up to 169 quintillion - with little loss in image detail), or iterating c by small amounts (like .005 to .01).

At this point I thought - very nice book, but I felt a little let down by so little INFORMATION passed along about WHAT these pictures were. The appendices changed all that!

Appendix A gives a nice explanation, complete with examples and graphs, of how to generate Julia Set fractal images. Appendix B is a 2 page selected bibliography, including both books and papers.

Appendix C lists and briefly explains 20 "Important Formulae for Complex Numbers". Having this would have saved me buying a book about complex numbers when I first discovered fractals, since it implies what the "rules" are.

Appendix D is REALLY KEY - for chapters 1-4, it lists nice mathematical data, and in almost all cases this includes: the image type, the equation, the complex constant, the screen parms, the blowup parms, and the maximum number of iterations. Here then, is HOW these beauties were created. For chapter 5, he doesn't list this, and for chapter 6, since they're studies, the detail varies, but is pretty good overall. To me, this takes the book from "very nice" to "awesome" because the layman can now get a better grasp on things and pursue what interests him/her.

Finally, unlabeled, but apparently Appendix E in my mind, he provides and index to the images BY EQUATION. A very nice cross reference to those thinking of exploring further in the literature or on their PC's.

So the "heavy math" type likely won't find much new here. For the rest of us, who just want some art, some (layman's)meaning/education, or both, aside from parts of "The Beauty of Fractals" this was without peer.

An excellent picture of fractals the CHAOS universe
Jeff, have you read of Dr. John Hubbard from Cornell and his analysis of the Mandelbrot Set? Your results and his analysis are so-ooo intriguing on what fractals promises for the future of mankind!!!!I have a video of his work and it is so fascinating. ... Read more

Product Description
Fractals and disordered systems have recently become the focus of intense interest in research. This book discusses in great detail the effects of disorder on mesoscopic scales (fractures, aggregates, colloids, surfaces and interfaces, glasses and polymers) and presents tools to describe them in mathematical language. A substantial part is devoted to the development of scaling theories based on fractal concepts. In ten chapters written by leading experts in the field, the reader is introduced to basic concepts and techniques in disordered systems and is led to the forefront of current research. This second edition has been substantially revised and updates the literature in this important field. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Very interesting
A thorough and interesting survey of the many ways you can find fractal in nature, and many subjects usually discarded by the other textbooks I happened to read. After some years I read it, I still remember the vividdescription of DLA growth. ... Read more

Product Description
A revision of a professional text on the phenomena of chaotic vibrations in fluids and solids. Major changes reflect the latest developments in this fast-moving topic, the introduction of problems to every chapter, additional mathematics and applications, more coverage of fractals, numerous computer and physical experiments. Contains eight pages of 4-color pictures. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Fractal, Chaos, IFS
I want some more information about the book ... Read more

Product Description
This volume contains the proceedings of a highly successful AMS Short Course on Chaos and Fractals, held during the AMS Centennial Celebration in Providence, Rhode Island in August 1988. Chaos and fractals have been the subject of great interest in recent years and have proven to be useful in a variety of areas of mathematics and the sciences. The purpose of the short course was to provide a solid introduction to the mathematics underlying the notions of chaos and fractals. The papers in this book range over such topics as dynamical systems theory, Julia sets, the Mandelbrot set, attractors, the Smale horseshoe, calculus on fractals, and applications to data compression. The authors represented here are some of the top experts in this field. Aimed at beginning graduate students, college and university mathematics instructors, and non-mathematics researchers, this book provides readable expositions of several exciting topics of contemporary research. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Somewhat dated, but still a good introduction to chaos and fractals
This material is the collection of lecture notes used for a short course presented by the American Mathematical Society in 1988. Therefore, the material is somewhat dated. The topics are:

*) Dynamics of simple maps
*) Nonlinear oscillations and the Smale horseshoe map
*) Fractal basin boundaries and chaotic attractors
*) Julia sets
*) The Mandelbroit set
*) Introduction to fractals
*) Iterated function systems

However, despite the passage of almost twenty years, this material is still an excellent introduction to these subjects. At the time of the conference, the material was new, exciting and it seemed that new applications of chaos and attractors were being discovered on a daily basis. At the time, I was a regular reader of the weekly "Science News" magazine and hardly an issue went by without a mention of chaos or fractals. Since it was so new, the material had to be presented at a level that led to understanding. Therefore, the modern reader that is relatively ignorant of the topics can get a great deal of benefit from this book.
... Read more

Product Description
This volume contains the proceedings of a highly successful AMS Short Course on Chaos and Fractals, held during the AMS Centennial Celebration in Providence, Rhode Island in August 1988. Chaos and fractals have been the subject of great interest in recent years and have proven to be useful in a variety of areas of mathematics and the sciences. The purpose of the short course was to provide a solid introduction to the mathematics underlying the notions of chaos and fractals. The papers in this book range over such topics as dynamical systems theory, Julia sets, the Mandelbrot set, attractors, the Smale horseshoe, calculus on fractals, and applications to data compression. The authors represented here are some of the top experts in this field. Aimed at beginning graduate students, college and university mathematics instructors, and non-mathematics researchers, this book provides readable expositions of several exciting topics of contemporary research. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Somewhat dated, but still a good introduction to chaos and fractals
This material is the collection of lecture notes used for a short course presented by the American Mathematical Society in 1988. Therefore, the material is somewhat dated. The topics are:

*) Dynamics of simple maps
*) Nonlinear oscillations and the Smale horseshoe map
*) Fractal basin boundaries and chaotic attractors
*) Julia sets
*) The Mandelbroit set
*) Introduction to fractals
*) Iterated function systems

However, despite the passage of almost twenty years, this material is still an excellent introduction to these subjects. At the time of the conference, the material was new, exciting and it seemed that new applications of chaos and attractors were being discovered on a daily basis. At the time, I was a regular reader of the weekly "Science News" magazine and hardly an issue went by without a mention of chaos or fractals. Since it was so new, the material had to be presented at a level that led to understanding. Therefore, the modern reader that is relatively ignorant of the topics can get a great deal of benefit from this book.
... Read more

Product Description
From Ancient Greek times, music has been seen as a mathematical art, and the relationship between mathematics and music has fascinated generations.This collection of wide ranging, comprehensive and fully-illustrated papers, authorized by leading scholars, presents the link between these two subjects in a lucid manner that is suitable for students of both subjects, as well as the general reader with an interest in music.Physical, theoretical, physiological, acoustic, compositional and analytical relationships between mathematics and music are unfolded and explored with focus on tuning and temperament, the mathematics of sound, bell-ringing and modern compositional techniques. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Expendable collection of essays
Only two chapters address fundamental mathematical-musical issues, namely decent chapters on the Pythagorean principles of consonance and scales and Helmholtz's theory of consonance. The rest of the book treats various quirky side topics, many of them trying in more or less contrived ways to force mathematical ideas (magic squares, finite projective planes, fractals, the Erlanger Programm, etc.) into a musical setting. Personally, I was amused by chapter 7 on bell-ringing: a bell-tower has a few different bells and of course "an evening spent playing unchanging rounds might be considered uneventful", so we wish to change the ringing order of our bells, but "because bells are heavy and slow" we are limited to changing the order one adjacent pair at a time, and so eighteenth century bell-ringers developed a sophisticated understanding of symmetric groups generated by transpositions, which we can now illustrate with modern concepts and Cayley diagrams and so on, only to conclude that the ringers "had been doing 'group theory' and 'ringing the cosets' all along". That's about as good as it gets. The book as a whole suffers from many shortcomings including lack of depth (e.g., chapter 2 on Kepler's musical cosmology doesn't contain a single line of mathematics), lack of breadth (e.g., Fourier analysis is not even in the index), and lack of originality (e.g., chapter 4 consists of recycled Ian Stewart material which in turn was mostly recycled Barbour material, down to consistent misspelling of the main character's name). ... Read more

Product Description

Provides an Intuitive View of Various Ecological Patterns and Processes

Ecologists sometimes have a less-than-rigorous background in quantitative methods, yet research within this broad field is becoming increasingly mathematical. Written in a step-by-step fashion, Fractals and Multifractals in Ecology and Aquatic Science provides scientists with a basic understanding of fractals and multifractals and the techniques for utilizing them when analyzing ecological phenomenon.

With illustrations, tables, and graphs on virtually every page – several in color – this book is a comprehensive source of state-of-the-art ecological scaling and multiscaling methods at temporal and spatial scales, respectfully ranging from seconds to months and from millimeters to thousands of kilometers. It illustrates most of the data analysis techniques with real case studies often based on original findings. It also incorporates descriptions of current and new numerical techniques to analyze and deepen understanding of ecological situations and their solutions.

Product Description
This is a one-stop introduction to the methods of ergodic theory applied to holomorphic iteration. The authors begin with introductory chapters presenting the necessary tools from ergodic theory thermodynamical formalism, and then focus on recent developments in the field of 1-dimensional holomorphic iterations and underlying fractal sets, from the point of view of geometric measure theory and rigidity. Detailed proofs are included. Developed from university courses taught by the authors, this book is ideal for graduate students. Researchers will also find it a valuable source of reference to a large and rapidly expanding field. It eases the reader into the subject and provides a vital springboard for those beginning their own research. Many helpful exercises are also included to aid understanding of the material presented and the authors provide links to further reading and related areas of research. ... Read more

Product Description
University of Washington, Seattle.Physiological research on fractals and chaos. Fractals are objects or processes with multiple-scale properties. For physiologists or mathematicians. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the first book to present the fascinating new results on the largest fractal structures in the universe. It guides the reader, in a simple way, to the frontiers of astronomy, explaining how fractals appear in cosmic physics, from our solar system to the megafractals in deep space. It also offers a personal view of the history of the idea of self-similarity and of cosmological principles, from Plato's ideal architecture of the heavens to Mandelbrot's fractals in the modern physical cosmos. In addition, this invaluable book presents the great fractal debate in astronomy (after Luciano Pietronero's first fractal analysis of the galaxy universe), which illustrates how new concepts and deeper observations reveal unexpected aspects of Nature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Fractals Begin to Come of Age
I am sure that most of us have been intrigued and inspired by those remarkable geometric shapes called fractals. It is now 45 years since the Polish-born French mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot introduced the world to fractal geometry, the mathematical study of those beautiful and bizarre structures that have become the staple of much modern art and adorn millions of computer screens. Although the actual word "fractal" first made its appearance in 1975.

Fractals are objects that are rough or irregular, but can be broken down into parts. And each part is similar to the original object.

I have been following the development of fractal theory for the last thirty years, not as a mathematician or artist, but as someone who has had a deep intuition that these objects have deep significance for our understanding of many physical and biological dynamics.

This well-written book begins with a lengthy historical review of basic concepts in astronomy and cosmogony. Astronomy was one of those all-consuming hobbies that stayed with me throughout early adolescence, so it was good to return to those heady days.

But then we get into the real meat of the book: the discovery of the largest fractal structures in the universe, and an explanation about how fractals appear in cosmic physics, from our solar system all the way to the mega-fractals in deep space. These fractals structures appear to provide powerful new evidence for the emerging theories of interaction, implying that everything in the Universe is interconnected, and no one thing can be examined without considering its context in time and space.

This is a book that could be read with pleasure by anyone interested in alternative ways of viewing our Universe. These cosmic fractals may turn out to have considerable practical importance for us.

I recommend this to anyone interested in learning more about some of the cutting edge science that is helping inform us about the nature of physical reality.

GREAT DISCOVERIES
The book Discovery of Cosmic Fractals by Yurij Baryshev and Pekka Teerikorpi describes the yet unexplored fractal structure of the universe, which is hard to handle in the big bang theory.The idea of self-similarity is much deeper than it looks, suggesting a universe made of self-defined and hence fractal (self-similar) 3D spiral interactions as it is argued in the book THEORY OF INTERACTION The Simplest Explanation of Everything by Eugene Savov.The comic fractals can be viewed as just another convincing confirmation of the emerging theory of interaction.These two books and also James Gleick's CHAOS Making a New Science are harbingers of a qualitatively new, singularity free and complete understanding of the universe. That is why I highly recommend these essential books to everybody interested in the puzzles of nature. ... Read more

Product Description
This well-illustrated volume reviews the many applications offractal geometry used to study earth science patterns and processes.Designedas an introduction to this new area of study, the papersrepresent abroad spectrum of earth science disciplines wherepatterns haveproven to be fractal over many orders of magnitude intime or space.This volume features an exhaustive list of publishedfractaldimensions measured for earth science patterns. ... Read more

Product Description
Fractals are the visual depictions of mathematical equations, the same equations, in fact, that describe natural phenomena such as coastlines, plant shapes and weather patterns. A computer program assigns a color to each point in the image based on the answers to a chosen equation, which then results in abstract fractal shapes. Dozens of variables are manipulated in order to create these fascinating images.
The Fractal Cosmos 2011 Wall Calendar features the organic designs of Alice Kelley, who says, Fractals are an intuitive glimpse into the infinite order that comprises the natural world, as well as being proof that math is beautiful.
The interior pages of this calendar are printed on 100% recycled, 50% post-consumer paper, processed chlorine free and printed with soy based inks. ... Read more

Product Description
This book is for the student to gain a basic understanding o fpattern grading. While the basic concepts of grading are simple, there are intircacies of grading which take professional expertise and many years of epxerience to learn. In this book, the student will learn the essentials of grading patterns. ... Read more

Product Description
The only integrative approach to chaos and random fractal theory

Chaos and random fractal theory are two of the most important theories developed for data analysis. Until now, there has been no single book that encompasses all of the basic concepts necessary for researchers to fully understand the ever-expanding literature and apply novel methods to effectively solve their signal processing problems. Multiscale Analysis of Complex Time Series fills this pressing need by presenting chaos and random fractal theory in a unified manner.

Adopting a data-driven approach, the book covers:

• DNA sequence analysis
• EEG analysis
• Heart rate variability analysis
• Neural information processing
• Network traffic modeling
• Economic time series analysis
• And more

Additionally, the book illustrates almost every concept presented through applications and a dedicated Web site is available with source codes written in various languages, including Java, Fortran, C, and MATLAB, together with some simulated and experimental data. The only modern treatment of signal processing with chaos and random fractals unified, this is an essential book for researchers and graduate students in electrical engineering, computer science, bioengineering, and many other fields. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Multiscale Analysis of Complex Time Series
The need to find order in data is the scientist's corollary to the more catholic need to find order in the universe which scientists sample.In the 1970s Mandelbrot drew attention to a kind of geometric order, which he called fractal, that was more complex and often more useful than the Euclidean geometry that had dominated mathematics for more than two millennia.A side effect of this fractal geometry was a set of insights into analyzing complex time series.Part of Mandelbrot's charm is that his fractal mathematics are as powerful in dealing with stock prices and water accumulation behind dams as they were in describing the shape of a coastline or a mountain range.These insights dovetailed beautifully and synergistically with developments in nonlinear dynamics, leading to what is now known as complexity theory.Many good books on fractals and complexity theory have followed, but until recently it was difficult to find books that increased insight on understanding complex time series while never losing sight of the bigger picture: the complex universe that spawned the time series.Gao et al.'s new book "Multiscale Analysis of Complex Time Series" meets this standard.

One disclosure: Although I've never met Jianbo Gao in person, I once collaborated by email with Gao on a study of 1/f^b processes in visual perception.1/f^b phenomena are becoming important in vision and are found in many different circumstances, ranging from natural images and visual textures (a focus of my own work) to time series analysis of multistable perception.I was therefore not surprised by the special focus in this book on 1/f^b processes.One thing that distinguishes this book from several others on complex time series is the care in which the authors weave the 1/f story from so many different theoretical and experimental strands.The only comparable treatment I can think of is Schroeder's "Fractals, Chaos and Power Laws", which is an easier and more delightful read, but much less useful for a working scientist trying to get his hands around real world data.If I'm enthusiastic about the book, it is perhaps for selfish reasons; reading it gave me a deeper understanding of some of the specialized problems I'm considering.

To develop understanding of multiscale 1/f-like time series, Gao et al. review fractals, chaos, probability theory, stochastic systems and the use of wavelets to probe at many different scales.They then delve more deeply into Levy motions, multifractals, multiplicative processes and bifurcation theory.The book is suitable as a textbook, with problems sets after each chapter, and datasets and software available on the Wiley website, but I suspect it will find more use as a monograph, for specialists pondering meaning in the multi-scaled datasets that their laboratories have just produced.The authors show sensitivity to a beginner's sensibilities, with "warm-up" exercises provided before plunging into more difficult material.

One topic I would like to have seen treated in depth in the book is stochastic resonance - a qualitative change in the behavior of a system when driven by noise.Stochastic resonance is a natural fit to this material: some kinds of SR are best driven by 1/f noise and some kinds of SR create 1/f behaviors.I suspect that SR's relative immaturity as a discipline makes it harder to treat authoritatively.This is a problem that time should solve, perhaps in time for a second edition.
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