[Edu-sig] another "must have" generator

[kirby urner]

Yep, no doubt about it, we have some worthy generators, have only
scratched the surface with Ramanujan's so far (fun to have extended
precision decimal type for more context, cross-checking pi to a couple
hundred digits maybe -- we've got that here too).

You can't create vacancies for positions you've not thought of, and
this "gnu math teacher" idea, of someone equipped to do both algebra
and computer languages at the same time, pre-college, is a vast empty
field the way I see it, precious few practitioners.

You might say that's because there's no demand, but I see plenty of
kids very hungry for this material, going out of their way to find it
on-line.

I'm just thankful we have the Internet, as those getting hooked up,
including the lucky XO set, don't have to slave through a lot of
pre-computerite nonsense before getting to the good stuff.

Or rather, they maybe get to slave away by day (with traditional black
or white boards) and learn by night (when free to use Youtube).  I'm
not sure how loyal this generation will be though, to those
factory-style schools, given their own growing up experience.  Maybe
it's time to put those behind us?  Do they serve a real purpose, other
than day care?

Some came to that position long ago, but I'm less radical, think we
could pipe services like Safari into Winterhaven, our local Hogwarts,
and keep those math labs humming.

I know many geeks who "do the right thing" and support public
schooling, work to update the curriculum, get involved in the
democratic process.

The temptation is to circle the wagons and do "company schools" like
before Oregon became a state.  Parents in high tech just don't see the
point of making junior a "prisoner of malpractice" for so many years.
Town-gown relations break down over such issue, employers flee
elsewhere, like to Bangalore.

In Portland, we keep working on bridging the gap, via OS Bridge for
example (planned for June) i.e. we'd like to keep attracting high tech
sector employers and their families, on the basis of our having strong
schools (one of our competitive edges, besides skiing and snow
boarding, great wine and cheese, beer, coffee...).

Kirby

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 6:12 PM, Gregor Lingl <gregor.lingl at aon.at> wrote:
>
>
> kirby urner schrieb:
>>
>> This is just to get junior experimenting with convergence / divergence
>> on the complex plane.  c is our variable.
>>
>> Per this Wikipedia article (fine to project in class, why not, though
>> "teacher reading from encyclopedia" shouldn't come off as mechanical):
>>
>> See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set
>> Also: http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/fractals.html
>>
>> IDLE 3.0a2
>>
>>>>>
>>>>> def mandelbrot(c):
>>>>>
>>
>>        z = 0 + c
>>        while True:
>>                yield z
>>                z = z ** 2 + c
>>
>>
>>
>
> May I again add an interesting thing,
> this time another indispensable generator,
> more exactly: three of them:
>
> def feigenbaum1(c,x):
>   while True:
>       yield x
>       x = c*x*(1-x)
>
>
> def feigenbaum2(c,x):
>   while True:
>       yield x
>       x = c*x-c*x*x
>
>
> def feigenbaum3(c,x):
>   while True:
>       yield x
>       x = c*(x-x**2)
>
>      along with this testing/experimenting function:
>
> def feigenbaumtest(feigenbaum, iterations=80):
>   f = feigenbaum(3.93, 0.5)
>   for i in range(iterations):
>       res = next(f)
>   return res
>
>>>> feigenbaumtest(feigenbaum1, 4)
> 0.24761176565334103
>>>> feigenbaumtest(feigenbaum2, 4)
> 0.24761176565334098
>>>> feigenbaumtest(feigenbaum3, 4)
> 0.24761176565334167
>>>> feigenbaumtest(feigenbaum1, 40)
> 0.43518828176766455
>>>> feigenbaumtest(feigenbaum2, 40)
> 0.43518808407096854
>>>> feigenbaumtest(feigenbaum3, 40)
> 0.43518950764209768
>>>> feigenbaumtest(feigenbaum1)
> 0.70329204370098442
>>>> feigenbaumtest(feigenbaum2)
> 0.8147039925205275
>>>> feigenbaumtest(feigenbaum3)
> 0.66573747868397481
>>>>
>
> Certainly something which demonstrates a (by many)
> unexpected relation between maths and computer science.
>
> Regards,
> Gregor
>
>
>