NOVA: Fractals - Hunting the Hidden Dimension

This was a great film to watch with my senior level math classes. I appreciate that the length allows me to show it straight through. I enjoy that there is enough really interesting and relevant information to stop the film for discussion. Great film! I showed this on an older Promethean board and had to have all of the lights out and blinds pulled to really be able to see the imagery. I also increased the board contrast a bit to bring the finer details to light. On my neighbor's board, it played beautifully without adjustments. (She has a newer set up than mine.)

I enjoy this series it is quite interesting and you never know what they are going to cover from historic events to current events and even the future. A quality series.

"The book of nature is written in mathematics." Galileo A tree, a bush, a cauliflaur, a brain, a lung system, what all these organic structures share in common is the use of repeating patterns to create a whole that in its macroscopic view is just like its microscopic view. Called fractals they have also been employed mathematically to describe forces of nature and also knowledge itself. In one of my very favorite quotes of all time, the late Isaac Asimov observed that "Knowledge has a fractal like structure. No matter how much we learn, whatever remains, no matter how seemingly small, is infinitely complex." Amazingly though artists had already informally discovered them, fractals came to the fore mathematically only in 1979 when Benoit Mandlebroit began writing about them and their ubiquity in nature. Mandlebroit had been a Jew trapped in France during WWII. He had survived to quickly earn his Phd. and then acquire a reputation as an academic very willing to follow his own hunches. Lucky for us Mandlebroit overcame early disdain for his discovery and pursued fractal research zealously. As alluded earlier in this notice, examples of both organic and inorganic uses of fractals have dominated research since 1979. For its part this DVD does an excellent job of discussing the history and various applications of fractals and it also inspires the viewer to further study and exploration of this important area of mathematics which actually turns out to be an example of creation itself. While nature's "book" may be written in mathematics, this DVD at least allows you to view a synopsis of this chapter on film.

I'm a science teacher and I use this episode of NOVA to get my students to better understand the theory of evolution. Explanations and evidence are laid out along with some real-world examples of how research is supporting one of the most important theories in all of science. It helps people visualize and understand how evolution happens, and makes it much more accessible and understandable to those who may not have much background in science or biology.

I ordered and recieved this to make up a minimum, thinking maybe it would be of interest. It has now been watched twice and is not only informative and educational but extremely enlightening. One of the most common threads in this documentary is (sadly) how the scientific community first chooses to ridicule and deride new, unconventional or out of the box thinking. It is surprising how this branch of applied mathematics took the world by storm, when it is intrinsically "of the world". If you enjoyed the TV Drama Numbers, this is probably a great documentary for you, ditto if you enjoy nature in all its fantastic aspects. As a documentary, it's very well put together - for example it's a surprise in one fashion that a single balsa wood tree, instead of making toy aeroplanes, can hold the mathematical key to the carbon footprint of an entire forest. Definately recommended.

This was a very interesting documentary, I didn't know too much about fractals and was totally unaware that these mathematics had so many potential applications in the study of the natural world. The history of their use in computer graphics and electrical engineering was fascinating. My only beef is that I feel too much time in this documentary is spent trying to show that mathematics is "cool" (as opposed to "square") and "the same as art" when, personally, I'm more interested in the history of the subject and its various useful applications. If you can show me something is useful, you don't have to try to show me that it's "cool", that's a given.

I first saw this on PBS and am delighted it is available on DVD. I recommend it for kids from 10 to 100. If you feel 'stuck', stay with it. Listen to the late Benoit Mandelbrot, father of Fractal Geometry, in person. Students: you can turn this into a math or science project that will wow your teacher. Artists: let the colors and shapes of the fractals expand your minds to a whole new level. Architects: you know what to do.

This is interesting introduction in fractal geometry. It's just amazing how geometry and proportions are represent many things in our live. I never thought that antenna in our cell phones based on this geometry and because of that it become possible to use the same structure of antenna for many uses in cell phone. Fractals can describe as complicated things as a human blood vessels and formation of mountains. Who do not like math won't be disappointed also because movie made in popular simple language. It just looks like God is master in math (not that old man with beard) and we can see and use his creations if we can understand how.

I had two copies sent and both were unplayable as they were for Region 1. I informed the supplier. I could not be bothered to go to the trouble of wrapping it up and sending it back. MOST DISAPPOINTED.

A good, concise overview of the discovery, history and use of fractals, one of the most intriguing scientific discoveries of the twentieth century. Relevant to myriad fields of science and mathematics today.

Interesting but moves towards myticism