Discussion
How would you explain the mandelbrot set to a sixth grade student who is trying to distract you from teaching your substitute lesson on solving linear equations?
(I swear to god these kids pass around lists of which topics distract which teachers most easily. They know the ants won't work, it's too obvious. But this was a good one.)
Said student also has some peers convinced that the mandelbrot set will "eat you" and I haven't done much to clear up this rumor.
its a wee bit beyond 6th grade math though...
Yeah. They don't know about quadratics, or imaginary numbers or roots.
But they know about the coordinate plane, and what a solution is for an equation...
I think the hardest part is the "diverge/converge" distinction.
I just ended up saying that it's possible to write a very short program to tell which points work with the equation and which do not ... and instead of the result being a simple shape like a circle or a line a complex landscape emerges.
But doesn't it make it more exciting when you find out it's just a simple quadratic and very short algorithm under all of those curlycues and teeth and whorls.
@futurebird Bring your guitar: https://youtu.be/M52WjmasGqY?si=drQ8w-ZAkA04AXy9
YouTube
@futurebird : you do a weird equation and color the points by how big a number you get to. Black is infinity. The shape of the infinite area is fractally complex and will look weird no matter how small an area you do the math for.
@futurebird i would introduce them to a Mandelbrot generator, like @mrandelbot or another visualiser, the one I learnt about Mandelbrot with was on the Amiga
@futurebird "This Chaos is what you get, if you don't do your equations linear! So get back to work!"
@futurebird I'm tired of the trend of reframing some basic math or science fact as scary to make people afraid to learn about it. The Mandelbrot set isn't going to eat you & neither will a selectively bred onion.