I saw this NOVA show the other night and thought it was fascinating.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/fractals/set.htmlI've also been reading "Developing Math Talent" by Susan Assouline and Ann Lupkowski-Shoplik. The book discusses Above-Level Testing for Gifted Math students. In it there is a bell curve showing percentile rank of grade-level achievement test (page 151 Figure 5.1, Section A). The tail end (95% +) is expanded in Section B and shows another bell curve. I keep thinking about how that tail end (95%) could be expanded to yet another bell curve and it reminds me of this "strange attractor."
Applying zoom-ins and different iterative prisms to the numbers in the boundary area of the Mandelbrot set has revealed that this region is a mathematical strange attractor. The "strange attractor" name here applies to the set because it is self-similar at many scales, is infinitely detailed, and attracts points (numbers) to certain recurrent behavior. Scientists study the set for insights into the nonlinear (chaotic) dynamics of real systems.
Does anyone have any insight about the relationship between Fractals and test score statistics?
