(Cornwall) How Simple Maths Makes Beautiful Mandelbrot Fractals

This meetup will be in Cornwall, not London.

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Probably the most famous fractals are the Mandelbrot and Julia sets. They are organic, intricate, and hauntingly beautiful!

Here's a video exploring the Mandelbrot fractal in immense detail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD2XgQOyCCk

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The aim of this session is to understand how simple mathematics creates these infinitely-detailed forms.

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We're very lucky to have Brod Ross, a local algorithmic artists, kick off the event with a 10 minute talk showcasing his exploration of 3D worlds created using the "Mandelbulb" variants of the popular fractal.

Here's an example by another artist: https://goo.gl/vUyRFT

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We'll take gentle steps:

• start from the idea of iteration and feedback with simple arithmetic

• learn about complex numbers (they're not complex!)

• see unexpected behaviour from very simple functions - including mathematical chaos!

• understand how the Mandelbrot and Julia fractals are just a map showing how numbers behave

• try a few creative ways of colouring and rendering these fractals

And for those more confident with maths:

• see a short proof of the escape condition that helps compute them quicker

• see them in a new perspective - the folding and rotating effect of complex operations

We'll share easy-to-read code that creates these fractals, and also take a brief look at tools you can use.

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You don't need to be confident with mathematics to enjoy this session. Non-technical artists very welcome!

The aim is to ensure that everyone leaves with at least an intuition of how these patterns are created, and an inspiration to explore them yourselves.

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For this session you don't need to bring a laptop.

We'll be starting at 6pm not 6.30pm. Parking is usually free in the council car parks at this time.