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From mullet to math genius after a concussion
New York Post ^ | April 20, 2014 | Susannah Cahalan

Posted on 04/25/2014 5:21:17 PM PDT by jsh3180

When Jason Padgett pours cream into his morning coffee, this is what he sees:

“I watch the cream stirred into the brew. The perfect spiral is an important shape to me. It’s a fractal. Suddenly, it’s not just my morning cup of joe, it’s geometry speaking to me.”

Padgett’s world is bursting with mathematical patterns. He is one of a few people in the world who can draw approximations of fractals, the repeating geometric patterns that are building blocks of everything in the known universe, by hand. Tree leaves outside his window are evidence of Pythagoras’ theorem. The arc that light makes when it bounces off his car proves the power of pi.

He sees the parts that make up the whole. And his world is never boring, never without amazement. Even his dreams are made up of geometry.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Science
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To: dangerdoc
See? That just proves it. (what exactly, I'm not quite sure)

/johnny

21 posted on 04/25/2014 5:58:38 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: jsh3180

After about the 15th beer, I pretty much am a genius.


22 posted on 04/25/2014 5:58:58 PM PDT by ansel12 ((Libertarianism offers the transitory concepts and dialogue to move from conservatism, to liberalism)
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To: jsh3180
He is one of a few people in the world who can draw approximations of fractals, the repeating geometric patterns that are building blocks of everything in the known universe, by hand.

Fractals are not building blocks, atoms are. I don't know what it means to 'draw an approximation of a fractal'---I don't think the statement makes any sense.

23 posted on 04/25/2014 6:00:21 PM PDT by Cruising Speed
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To: JRandomFreeper

Well, yeah ... if you build your circles out of planks.


24 posted on 04/25/2014 6:21:11 PM PDT by NonValueAdded (Operating out of weakness? Imagine if he was working from a position of strength!)
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To: Cruising Speed
In the sense that fractal equations are nowhere differentiable... they do get rather atom-like.

/johnny

25 posted on 04/25/2014 6:26:37 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: JRandomFreeper

I think my nose bled as I was typing that post.


26 posted on 04/25/2014 6:37:31 PM PDT by dangerdoc
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To: SES1066

The brain is not the mind. The brain is a tool of the mind, kind of like the frequency generator manipulated by someone desiring to produce electromagnetic waves.


27 posted on 04/25/2014 6:41:00 PM PDT by MHGinTN
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To: dangerdoc
And mine bled reading it.

We only covered a little bit of higher math and physics in culinary school.

I'm much better equipped by practical training to make a Bearnaise sauce, or do a vasectomy on your brother-in-law.

/johnny

28 posted on 04/25/2014 6:41:08 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: jsh3180

He looks a bit gay, now.


29 posted on 04/25/2014 6:58:03 PM PDT by BobL
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To: JRandomFreeper

Getting straight lines means you walk the Planck.


30 posted on 04/25/2014 7:11:25 PM PDT by Redcitizen (When a zombie apocalypse starts, Chuck Norris doesn't try to survive. The zombies do.)
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To: ansel12
After about 15 beers, you start looking cute, too...

/johnny

31 posted on 04/25/2014 7:14:16 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: Cruising Speed
I don't know what it means to 'draw an approximation of a fractal'

Here you are: o

32 posted on 04/25/2014 7:16:25 PM PDT by Greysard
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To: Greysard
Up close, that looks a lot like great big square blocks....

/johnny

33 posted on 04/25/2014 7:23:09 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: JRandomFreeper

What did the mountain man say to the cross country bicyclist when his bike broke down and he asked to spend the night?

He told the man it was just fine, and good timing, because that night there was going to be wild happenings, plenty of hard drinking, hard sex, hard fighting, and hard partying, the young man thought that was pretty exciting and asked the mountain man how man people were going to show up, and the mountain man said, well, it’s just gonna be me and you boy.


34 posted on 04/25/2014 7:28:53 PM PDT by ansel12 ((Libertarianism offers the transitory concepts and dialogue to move from conservatism, to liberalism)
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To: ansel12
Ya know... I spent 2 years living the mid 1800s mountain man lifestyle without running water, commercial electricity...

I never had a bicyclist stop by, but 2 wild turkeys that camped out on my front porch wound up just a bunch of feathers.....

/johnny

35 posted on 04/25/2014 7:46:46 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: JRandomFreeper

Reminds me of Colonel Flagg on MASH. He looks at a dress wearing Klinger and says up close your a man. Klinger says, “Far away too.”


36 posted on 04/25/2014 7:49:22 PM PDT by taterjay
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To: SIDENET

I’m bald but Jason and I share the same surname, so I’m farther along. Algebra was my favorite subject. I took it five times.


37 posted on 04/25/2014 8:21:11 PM PDT by cyclotic (America's premier outdoor adventure association for boys-traillifeusa.com)
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To: dangerdoc

Of course they don’t. And they are pretty darned depressed over that.


38 posted on 04/25/2014 8:59:18 PM PDT by Vermont Lt (If you want to keep your dignity, you can keep it. Period........ Just kidding, you can't keep it.)
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To: jsh3180

Fractals in the front, Pythagoras in the back.


39 posted on 04/25/2014 9:07:40 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: dalereed

We all thought that, Dale.


40 posted on 04/25/2014 9:44:23 PM PDT by coop71 (Being a redhead means never having to say you're sorry...)
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