MA3D4 Fractal Geometry
Lecturer: Han Yu
Term(s): Term 2
Status for Mathematics students: List A
Commitment: 30 one hour lectures
Assessment: 100% by 3 hour Examination
Formal registration prerequisites: None
Assumed knowledge:
Useful background:
Synergies:
Leads to: The following modules have this module listed as assumed knowledge or useful background:
Content: Fractals are geometric forms that possess structure on all scales of magnification. Examples are the middle third Cantor set, the von Koch snowflake curve and the graph of a nowhere differentiable continuous function.
The main focus of the module will be the mathematical theory behind fractals, such as the definition and properties of the Hausdorff dimension, which is a number quantifying how 'rough' the fractal is and which reduces to the usual dimension when applied to Euclidean space. However, more recent developments will be included, such as iterated function systems (used for image compression) where we study how a fractal is approximated by other compact subsets.
Books: K. Falconer, Fractal Geometry: Mathematical Foundations and Applications, Wiley, 1990 or 2003. (We shall cover much of the first half of this book.)