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kottke.org posts about paolaantonelli

Benoit Mandelbrot and Paola Antonelli talk about,

Benoit Mandelbrot and Paola Antonelli talk about, among other things, fractals, self-similarity in architecture, algorithms that could specify the creation of entire cities, visual mathematics, and generalists.

This has been for me an extraordinary pleasure because it means a certain misuse of Euclid is dead. Now, of course, I think that Euclid is marvelous, he produced one of the masterpieces of the human mind. But it was not meant to be used as a textbook by millions of students century after century. It was meant for a very small community of mathematicians who were describing their works to one another. It’s a very complicated, very interesting book which I admire greatly. But to force beginners into a mathematics in this particular style was a decision taken by teachers and forced upon society. I don’t feel that Euclid is the way to start learning mathematics. Learning mathematics should begin by learning the geometry of mountains, of humans. In a certain sense, the geometry of…well, of Mother Nature, and also of buildings, of great architecture.


If you’re curious as to what designers

If you’re curious as to what designers mean when they talk about design, check out Paola Antonelli’s talk from last year’s TED conference. (BTW, TED has made publicly available a great number of talks from their conferences…like 40-50 hours of material.)