The talk will be profusely illustrated with beautiful images of these possible worlds.
Credited by Benoit Mandelbrot, the father of fractal geometry, with being Òthe first true fractal-based artistÓ Ken Musgrave is one of the leading figures in the new school of algorithmic art. Prof. Musgrave is also well known researcher in the filed of computer graphics, specifically in models of natural phenomena. He received his PhD in computer science from Yale, where he worked with Mandelbrot from 1987 to 1993. His images have appeared in the Guggenheim Museum, in museums from Paris to Brisbane, in many math and computer science textbooks, and in The National Geographic.

TITLE: How to Build a Planet

Abstract: This talk will describe the five essential elements necessary to create an entire planet, looking much like Earth, from first algorithmic principles.

We will contrast our Òapplied logicÓ approach to modeling natural phenomena with both scientific and artistic approaches, and attempt to elucidate the usefulness and limitations of each method.

Nature is visually complex; we wish to reproduce this complexity in our synthetic images. Fractal geometry provides a terse and potent language for many natural phenomena. We will elucidate the concept of Òfractal,Ó how fractal geometry allows a terse encoding of visual behaviors of potentially unlimited complexity.

The talk will be profusely illustrated with beautiful images of these possible worlds.