WSE 187: 

Fractals

(Session 1)

January 27 - February 15

 

Tuesday-Thursday 3:50-5:10 p.m. S235 Math Tower

 
 

Instructors:   
Basak Gurel 
Office: Math Tower 3-114
Phone: 632-8261
Email: basak@math.sunysb.edu


 
Moira Chas  
Office: Math Tower 4-120
Phone: 632-8278
Email: moira@math.sunysb.edu

Office Hours: By appointment

About the course:
After a quick and general introduction to Maple (a mathematics computer program) we study how to use this program to produce pictures of different geometric objects. In order to produce these pictures, students will need the file "turtle.txt" that can be found here.
Fractals are fragmented geometric shapes that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole.
They are widely used in our days, in very diverse areas such  as modeling of nature (trees, coastlines, snowflakes) or image processing.
We will start by giving guidelines to construct some of these amazing shapes and then the students will be able to design their own fractals.
We will study some of their properties, such as fractal dimension and self-similarity.
Maple will be used as a tool, but no computer knowledge will be necessary.

 

Homework and projects:
Some homework problems will be assigned during the classes. In the last class, each student should expose a project (project1, project2, project3) and submit a short writen paper.

Grading policies:
    Homework: 10%
    Class participation: 20%
    Project: 40%
    Paper: 30%






<>Click here to go over the classes.

Homework
Work on the two first classes ,  making sure that you understand all the commands used as well as the exercises and the examples.


Bibliography

·  Notes for Mat331 Mathematical Problem Solving with Computers, by Santiago Simanca and Scott Sutherland, Summer 2002 edition. (First and last chapters)