What Pynchon Knew

[Bonnie Surfus (ENG)]

On Sat, 27 May 1995 OUTRSPACIA at aol.com wrote:

> Does anybody really know what a fractal is? 25 or 6 to 4.
> 
As far as my reading has revealed, "fractal" was coined by Benoit 
Mandelbrot, who, working to publish his work on the shapes, dimensions  
and geometry under examination, was looking through his son's Latin 
dictionary and found "fractus" (adj) which derived from "frangere" (vb) 
meaning "to break"  Mandelbrot forged a connection with the English 
"fraction," and thus emerged "fractal," a word that describes constants 
in inconsistency (pp from Gleick's _Chaos_.)  Paul Davies, in _The New 
Physics_, says of "fractal geometry" that it is a "generalisation of 
Euclidean geometry suitable for describing irregular and fragmented 
patterns.  A noninteger 'fractal dimension' can frequently (but not 
always) be associated with such patterns" (496).

I've found Mandelbrot's 1967 "How Long is the Coastline of Britain?" 
essay most helpful in clarifying fractals, chaos and complexity (insofar 
as a non-physics major can 'understand'.)  

More simple ways of saying something on the shapes and geometries of 
dynamic systems:

fractals emerge from the consideration of the characteristics of 
irregularity relevant to certain systems, phenomenon.  In this respect, 
it is not an oxymoron to claim that systems, however chaotic, demonstrate 
"deterministic randomness" (Davies 350).

A useful book is _The Beauty of Fractals_ by H.O. Peitgen and P.H. 
Richter from the Center for Complex Dynamics, Univ. of 
Bremen--(Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1986.)  They describe fractals as 
"pictures of chaos," wherein we can see that "chaotic attractors 
frequently have a fractal, self-similar structure,"  this self-similarity 
is seen on every scale.  Think of the image of a leaf.  On every scale 
the image is the same, or so similar as to appear the same orderly image 
(naturally, the chaotic nature of the system, characterized by sensitive 
dependence on initial conditions suggests it may not be EXACTLY 'same'.)  
One of particular note in the Peitgen-Richter text is the 
"many-tentacled, fractal octopus from which there can be no escape" 
(Davies 363.)  Oddly, I was just reading the passge on Octopus Grigori 
(Has anyone seen anything on Frank Norris' novel and that passage--I had 
some thoughts on determinism. . .?)

Well, I could just pick and choose all day from my fav texts on chaos and 
fractals.  Hope it's helpful

Bonnie