Yesterday, in honor of his birthday, Google paid homage to Gaston Julia with the following banner image:
Julia was a French mathematician who studied the iteration of polynomials and rational functions in the first third of the twentieth century. He is better known in modern times for his contributions to the science of fractal geometry as popularized by Benoit Mandelbrot.
I was especially struck by this tribute as I’ve been playing with fractals since around 1990, and in fact, I posted some images created by the venerable fractint as part of my earliest web content. Here are a couple of examples:
I’m currently looking for a good Mac (OS X only, please) fractal generator. So far I’m evaluating Fractal Domains and Easy Fractal and am leaning slightly towards FD though I would prefer a more fractint (select and zoom) like interface. There’s no disputing the beauty of the fractals created with this program, though:
Finally, here’s a link to an interesting web-based fractal explorer; enjoy!