full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Ron Eglash: The fractals at the heart of African designs
Unscramble the Blue Letters
The most complex example of an algorithmic aarpocph to fractals that I found was actually not in geometry, it was in a symbolic code, and this was bamnaa sand divination. And the same diivatnoin system is found all over Africa. You can find it on the East Coast as well as the West Coast, and often the symbols are very well preserved, so each of these symbols has four bits — it's a four-bit binary word — you draw these leins in the sand randomly, and then you count off, and if it's an odd number, you put down one stroke, and if it's an even nuembr, you put down two strokes. And they did this very rapidly, and I couldn't uertnnsdad where they were getting — they only did the randomness four temis — I couldn't understand where they were getting the other 12 symbols. And they wouldn't tell me. They said, "No, no, I can't tell you about this." And I said, "Well look, I'll pay you, you can be my teechar, and I'll come each day and pay you." They said, "It's not a matter of money. This is a religious matter."
Open Cloze
The most complex example of an algorithmic ________ to fractals that I found was actually not in geometry, it was in a symbolic code, and this was ______ sand divination. And the same __________ system is found all over Africa. You can find it on the East Coast as well as the West Coast, and often the symbols are very well preserved, so each of these symbols has four bits — it's a four-bit binary word — you draw these _____ in the sand randomly, and then you count off, and if it's an odd number, you put down one stroke, and if it's an even ______, you put down two strokes. And they did this very rapidly, and I couldn't __________ where they were getting — they only did the randomness four _____ — I couldn't understand where they were getting the other 12 symbols. And they wouldn't tell me. They said, "No, no, I can't tell you about this." And I said, "Well look, I'll pay you, you can be my _______, and I'll come each day and pay you." They said, "It's not a matter of money. This is a religious matter."
Solution
- times
- approach
- teacher
- lines
- number
- understand
- bamana
- divination
Original Text
The most complex example of an algorithmic approach to fractals that I found was actually not in geometry, it was in a symbolic code, and this was Bamana sand divination. And the same divination system is found all over Africa. You can find it on the East Coast as well as the West Coast, and often the symbols are very well preserved, so each of these symbols has four bits — it's a four-bit binary word — you draw these lines in the sand randomly, and then you count off, and if it's an odd number, you put down one stroke, and if it's an even number, you put down two strokes. And they did this very rapidly, and I couldn't understand where they were getting — they only did the randomness four times — I couldn't understand where they were getting the other 12 symbols. And they wouldn't tell me. They said, "No, no, I can't tell you about this." And I said, "Well look, I'll pay you, you can be my teacher, and I'll come each day and pay you." They said, "It's not a matter of money. This is a religious matter."
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| infinite number |
4 |
| georg cantor |
3 |
| seed shape |
2 |
| aerial photograph |
2 |
| fractal model |
2 |
| tiny village |
2 |
| spirit people |
2 |
| stacked recursively |
2 |
| native american |
2 |
| kids learn |
2 |
| board game |
2 |
| deterministic chaos |
2 |
| binary code |
2 |
| brian eno |
2 |
Important Words
- africa
- algorithmic
- approach
- bamana
- binary
- bits
- coast
- code
- complex
- count
- day
- divination
- draw
- east
- find
- fractals
- geometry
- lines
- matter
- money
- number
- odd
- pay
- preserved
- put
- randomly
- randomness
- rapidly
- religious
- sand
- stroke
- strokes
- symbolic
- symbols
- system
- teacher
- times
- understand
- west
- word