Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Fractals in our world: "I'm a mathemetician and I'd like to stand on your roof": Ron Eglash on African Fractals

Interesting TED Talk:
Self-replication and recursive scaling patterns in African village architecture, discussed from the point-of-view of mathematician Ron Eglash:


Some of this architecture relies on complex algorithms. You can find out why some farmers in Africa make fractal fences.  Self-organization is in our brains and networks, and also related to adverse medical conditions as well.  The African Fractals website contains the pictures used in the TED presentation.

Here is Ron Eglash's bio, from the TED website:
"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."

His other areas of study are equally fascinating, including research into African and Native American cybernetics, teaching kids math through culturally specific design tools (such as the Virtual Breakdancer applet, which explores rotation and sine functions), and race and ethnicity issues in science and technology. Eglash teaches in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and he recently co-edited the book Appropriating Technology, about how we reinvent consumer tech for our own uses.



RELATED

Learning and creating designs with African Fractals

Ron Eglash's Website

SOMEWHAT RELATED

No comments: