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Yale University professor Michael Frame will speak on “Growing Fractals, Making Mountains, and (Maybe) Finding Patterns on Wall Street” noon today in room 227 of Pardee Hall.
Free and open to the public, the talk is sponsored by the Mathematical Adventures and Diversions series. Lunch will be provided.
“We’ll introduce fractal geometry as a language for roughness in nature,” says Frame. “After discussing mathematical schemes for generating simple fractals, we’ll show how modifications of these methods can be used to synthesize realistic natural scenes, and to identify patterns in data. We’ll conclude with an exposition of Mandelbrot’s (the inventor of fractal geometry) recent ‘cartoons’ (models) of the stock market.”
Frame has taught Fractal Geometry, a course targeted for non-math majors, for the last three fall semesters at Yale. He has been an advocate of integrating technology into math departments since starting as a professor at Union College in 1987. Within his first year, he convinced a recalcitrant administration to place a personal computer on the desk of every math professor. He also pioneered the use of computers in undergraduate math classes.
According to Union College, Frame “brought a high level of computer expertise to the department, along with a driving energy which impressed even the dedicated group already in place. Frame had an immediate and powerful impact on the department”