Winners of Fractal Contest Still Trippy Wierdoes

It’s not every day that I get to post something about Mathematics. It’s not really my field. Today I saw, on various sources, a contest judged by Menoit Mandelbrot has announced this years winners of a fractal art contest. You can see the wining entries here. I don’t want to disparage mathematicians in the least, but computer-desktop-fractal-art is not exactly my fave. That said, there are some great works that probably did take some very genuine thinking to construct.

Congrats all.

Science Ed Anyone?

As if you didn’t already think we needed more math and science education in the US, chimps now have a better command of numbers than human adults.  The chimps have a cognitive advantage.  Crazy.  You can also hear Jane Goodall talk about a chimp who loves to play computer games.  I, for one, embrace our furry, tree climbing overlords.  From boingboing and ted.

Too many scientists?!?!?!

I think this is probably rubbish, but interesting rubbish should always get a close look.  The following article contends that k-12 students are improving in STEM fields and that we are actually producing more STEM university graduates than the job market can handle.  This is VASTY against other conventional wisdom and several other studies.  

 

From Business Week 

Mathematica 6 Out Soon (we hope)

I just noticed today that the Mathematica site has changed. No, I don’t just surf the web until something looks different. You can notice the slight change from the always useful MathWorld part of their site. They have posted new information about the long awaited Mathematica 6.

There is no information about the release date, but I was able to get all the way to the payment screen of their online store before I realized they were selling the older Mathematica 5.2 with a free upgrade to Mathematica 6. To me, this points to an eminent release. Well, I hope it points to that.

Far more importantly, their site contains loads of information about what the new version can do. It looks quite impressive. They have made some considerable upgrades to their 3D plotting, and it looks great. Lighting, transparency and all the things you would expect to get out of a half decent graphics card are all there. Look for yourself here.

UPDATE:
Mathematica 6 is out, you just can’t download it yet when you buy it their online store. It does make a person ask just how out the program is.

LAPACK rules: Why you should use vector code

For those who don’t know, LAPACK is amazing. It gives scientists, engineers and mathematicians the ability to easily take advantage of the vector hardware present in modern computers.

Spherical Harmonic is Beta

The Spherical Harmonic plotter has gone from alpha to beta status. What does this mean? There are no longer problems with image cracking for odd values of l (or j if you are into angular momentum). Odd l harmonics also have all the lobes they should. Yes, this is a Mac-only, Cocoa-based application. Sorry.
enjoy

Say It “Lee”, As In Bruce

Today we are told that one of the largest Lie Groups, , has been described in about as complete a way any group can be described. You can get some official looking news here and here. Since we all know that major news sources HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO REPORT ON SCIENCE, AND EVEN LESS AN IDEA HOW TO REPORT ON MATH, I’ll take a stab at telling the world what this means. To understand this piece of news, you’ll first need a tiny bit of background.