The original Mandelbrot is an amazing object that has captured the public's imagination for 30 years with its cascading patterns and hypnotically colourful detail. It's known as a 'fractal' - a type of shape that yields (sometimes elaborate) detail forever, no matter how far you 'zoom' into it (think of the trunk of a tree sprouting branches, which in turn split off into smaller branches, which themselves yield twigs etc.).
It's found by following a relatively simple math formula. But in the end, it's still only 2D and flat - there's no depth, shadows, perspective, or light sourcing. What we have featured in this article is a potential 3D version of the same fractal.
Wolfram Alpha to open data feeds Wolfram Alpha, a project from the makers of math software Mathematica, will soon be opening up its data sets, opening up new possibilities for data mash ups
NSDL.org is an online science library with links to high quality science, technology, engineering, and math resources for K-12 teachers, faculty, librarians, students and informal learners. Funded by the National Science Foundation.
Tux4Kids develops high-quality software for kids, with the goal of combining fun and learning into an irresistable package. Our software is free: you can download it for use at home or onto hundreds of computers in a school. We support all major platforms, including Windows, Macintosh, and Linux/Unix. Our programs are used by people around the globe, and they have been translated into dozens of different languages. As open-source software, these programs can be freely extended or customized, and they are supported by active communities of volunteer developers.
MATLAB® and NumPy/SciPy have a lot in common. But there are many differences. NumPy and SciPy were created to do numerical and scientific computing in the most natural way with Python, not to be MATLAB® clones. This page is intended to be a place to collect wisdom about the differences, mostly for the purpose of helping proficient MATLAB® users become proficient NumPy and SciPy users. NumPyProConPage is another page for curious people who are thinking of adopting Python with NumPy and SciPy instead of MATLAB® and want to see a list of pros and cons.
TED Talks From rockets to stock markets, many of humanity's most thrilling creations are powered by math. So why do kids lose interest in it? Conrad Wolfram says the part of math we teach -- calculation by hand -- isn't just tedious, it's mostly irrelevant to real mathematics and the real world. He presents his radical idea: teaching kids math through computer programming.