Week 4 Blog 1

I am now in the middle of Jurassic Park. I like the book; it’s much more interesting than the movie. Malcolm’s character is especially interesting. Using math and reason to describe how things work simply makes sense to me. Fractals are by far my favorite concept so far. We watched a video of a demonstration of a fractal, and it was mesmerizing. Maybe it’ll be my next screensaver. Fractals make sense in some situations, such as a tree. The shape of the tree is approximately the same shape as the branches and then the veins running through the leaves (assuming it’s a deciduous tree). Also, the moon is a great example of a fractal. The shape of the moon is about the same shape as the craters on the moon, which are about the same shape as the particles of moon dust. However, I can’t see fractals applying to animals. If say, one were to look at a penguin, and then one was to zoom in and look at the feathers, one would determine that the shapes of the feathers and of the bird are far from similar. Similarly, a cheetah looks nothing like a hair growing on its body. So, fractals can be applied in real life, but only in some cases, mostly inanimate object cases.