African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design
- ISBN-10
- 0813526140
- ISBN-13
- 9780813526140
- Category
- Mathematics
- Pages
- 258
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1999
- Author
- Ron Eglash
Description
Fractals are characterized by the repetition of similar patterns at ever-diminishing scales. Fractal geometry has emerged as one of the most exciting frontiers on the border between mathematics and information technology and can be seen in many of the swirling patterns produced by computer graphics. It has become a new tool for modeling in biology, geology, and other natural sciences. Anthropologists have observed that the patterns produced in different cultures can be characterized by specific design themes. In Europe and America, we often see cities laid out in a grid pattern of straight streets and right-angle corners. In contrast, traditional African settlements tend to use fractal structures-circles of circles of circular dwellings, rectangular walls enclosing ever-smaller rectangles, and streets in which broad avenues branch down to tiny footpaths with striking geometric repetition. These indigenous fractals are not limited to architecture; their recursive patterns echo throughout many disparate African designs and knowledge systems. Drawing on interviews with African designers, artists, and scientists, Ron Eglash investigates fractals in African architecture, traditional hairstyling, textiles, sculpture, painting, carving, metalwork, religion, games, practical craft, quantitative techniques, and symbolic systems. He also examines the political and social implications of the existence of African fractal geometry. His book makes a unique contribution to the study of mathematics, African culture, anthropology, and computer simulations.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Geometry from Africa: Mathematical and Educational Explorations
By Paulus GerdesPresents an introduction to the Pythagorean Theorem and other mathematical concepts through the study of Sub-Saharan African craft patterns.
-
Appropriating Technology: Vernacular Science and Social Power
By Ron EglashThis is the first study of how such "outsiders" reinvent consumer products-often in ways that embody critique, resistance, or outright revolt.Contributors: Richard M. Benjamin, Miami U; Hank Bromley, SUNY, Buffalo; Massimiano Bucchi, U of ...
-
Africa Counts: Number and Pattern in African Culture
By Claudia ZaslavskyA unique illustrated book about how African peoples' numerical systems, geometrical designs, and subtle mathematical games have developed and are being used today.
-
The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression & Reflection
By Anne H. Berry, Kareem Collie, Penina Acayo LakerThrough the voices represented, this text exemplifies the inherently collaborative and multidisciplinary nature of design, providing access to ideas and topics for a variety of audiences, meeting people as they are and wherever they are in ...
-
Fractal Concepts in Surface Growth
By A.- L. Barabási, H. E. Stanley[ 469 ] R. F. Voss , in Fundamental Algorithms in Computer Graphics , edited by R. Earnshaw ( Springer - Verlag , Berlin , 1985 ) , pp . 805–835 . [ 470 ] D. D. Vvedensky , A. Zangwill , C. N. Luse and M. R. Wilby , ' Stochastic ...
-
Africa and Mathematics: From Colonial Findings Back to the Ishango Rods
By Dirk HuylebrouckThis volume on ethnomathematics in Central Africa fills a gap in the current literature, focusing on a region rarely explored by other publications.
-
A History of the Circle: Mathematical Reasoning and the Physical Universe
By Ernest ZebrowskiRanging from ancient times to twentieth-century theories of time and space, looks at how exploring the circle has lead to increased knowledge about the physical universe.
-
Geometry of Sets and Measures in Euclidean Spaces: Fractals and Rectifiability
By Pertti MattilaThis book studies the geometric properties of general sets and measures in euclidean space.
-
The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness
By Paul GilroyAn account of the location of black intellectuals in the modern world following the end of racial slavery.
-
Analysis on Fractals
By Jun KigamiExcept for Kusuoka and Zhou [109], so far, the analytical approach has not succeeded in studying analysis on infinitely ramified fractals. One may ask “why do you oniy study seif-similar sets'?”. Indeed, seifsimilar sets are a special ...