Fractals--a PBS production

New at your library!

What do movie special effects, the stock market, and heart attacks have in common?  All three are connected by a revolutionary new branch of mathematics called fractals, which changed the way we see the world and opened up a vast new territory to scientific analysis and understanding.   Meet the mathematicians who developed fractals from a mere curiosity to an approach that touches nearly every branch of understanding, including the fate of our universe.  Check out the new DVD that PBS has released about fractals to get a better understanding of this branch of mathematics.

A fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced sized copy of the whole--a property known as self-similarity.  A mathematical fractal is based on an equation that undergoes iteration, a form of feedback based on recursion.

Obsessive Genius:  The Inner World of Marie Curie by Barbara GoldsmithMarie

Curie remains the only woman who was twice awarded the Nobel Prize, for her work with radioactivity and then for her discovery of radium and polonium. The achievements of the Polish born Marie Sklodowska are well known and she has become an 'icon'.

So enduring is the reputation of Marie Curie that more than 100 years after she won her first Nobel Prize, for physics in 1903 (she won a second, for chemistry, in 1911), Curie (1867–1934) is still regarded by most as the pre-eminent woman scientist of the 20th century. Goldsmith's straightforward biography illuminates both the public Curie, a tireless scientist obsessed with work, and the private one, a woman who suffered bouts of severe depression, was distant from her children and scarred deeply by the accidental death of her scientist husband, Pierre, in 1906. Using long-sealed Curie family archives, Goldsmith offers a well-rounded view of her subject that makes good dramatic use of the considerable intrigue that surrounded Curie's scientific accomplishments and her private life.