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13 quotes by Ron Eglash

Ron Eglash (born December 25, 1958 in Chestertown, Maryland) is an American cyberneticist, professor of science and technology studies at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and author widely known for his work in the field of ethnomathematics, which aims to study the diverse relationships between mathematics and culture. His research includes the use of fractal patterns in African architecture, art, and religion, and the relationships between...
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Mathematicians didn't invent infinity until 1877. So they thought it was impossible that Africans could be using fractal geometry.

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Fractal geometry is everywhere, even in lines drawn in the sand. It's the cycle of life... You see fractals in plants, in flowers. Within the... →

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While fractal geometry is often used in high-tech science, its patterns are surprisingly common in traditional African designs.

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Creating a body of mathematics is about intellectual labor, not some kind of transcendental revelation. There are plenty of important components of... →

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The reason that Google was such a success is because they were the first ones to take advantage of the self-organizing properties of the web.... →

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When Europeans first came to Africa, they considered the architecture very disorganized and thus primitive. It never occurred to them that the... →

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I just toured around looking for fractals, and when I found something that had a scaling geometry, I would ask the folks what was going on - why they... →

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I started collecting aerial photographs of Native American and South Pacific architecture; only the African ones were fractal. And if you think about... →

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If you take your thumb and your index finger and look right where they meet - go ahead and do that now - and relax your hand, you'll see a... →

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My assumption was that all indigenous architecture would be more fractal. My reasoning was that all indigenous architecture tends to be organized... →

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Now in the 1980s, I happened to notice that if you look at an aerial photograph of an African village, you see fractals. And I thought, 'This is... →

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The best thing we can do is give students the tools for constructing their own identities - powerful new tools like African fractals - and then just... →

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There is no singular 'reason' why Africans use fractals, any more than a singular reason why Americans like rock music. Such enormous... →

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