Tapping something akin to the famous Mandelbrot fractals, Cornell mathematicians stave off the threat of peak cat.
Posted 09.28.2012 at 9:07 am
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Kitty, via Julia Set
Lindsey and Thurston via arXiv
Threatened by the idea that we may someday run out of cat photos, a couple of Cornell mathematicians have set about using their skills to approximate the shape of a cat using a mathematic device known as the Julia sets of polynomials. The Julia sets of degree two polynomials is closely related to the more familiar Mandelbrot set, one of the most famous fractals.
There’s a lot of serious math involved in this that we’re not going to get into here (you can dig into that via grad student Kathryn Lindsey and advisor William Thurston’s paper), but know this: thanks to these fractal kitties, we won’t be reaching “peak cat” anytime soon.
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Kitties for everyone!
This is meant to be a preemptive message.
To whom it may concern (you know who you are): animated avatars are extremely annoying. They are no better than animated ads. The apparent motion makes it nearly impossible to read the text beside them. It certainly makes it not worth the while.
Get rid of animated avatars! Let the content of your post speak for itself. If you think you need an animation to call attention to yourself, and your post -- that tells me you have nothing worthwhile to say. I just scroll on past your hyperactive icons.
Tundra, I have to disagree. I for one take great pride in my Polka-dancing kitty avatar....
I normally don't respond to off topic comments, but this topic is so idiotic i actually found the off topic content more entertaining and worthwhile.
I almost found the moron posting the fraud scam more stimulating.