Mandelbrot’s Vegetable Stand

Posted by jns on January 18, 2007

I can’t say I expected to see fractals mentioned in an article about cauliflower — or a casual mention of “the Mandelbrot theory” by a cauliflower farmer — but I wasn’t terribly surprised either. I’ve seen these Romanesco cauliflowers and they are visually astonishing, regardless of whether one is a “Caltech guy” or not. I’m not convinced that our author has a deep understanding of fractals, but she manages to capture the spirit and not do much violence to the idea of self-similarity (at all length scales), so Mrs. Scattergood gets the gold star in science communication for today.

But the Romanesco cauliflower is an heirloom and isn’t to be confused with green cauliflower, or broccoflower, which is a cross between a broccoli and a cauliflower. Romanesco is astonishing in appearance, as much for its composition as for its color. Lime-green in hue, a head (or curd) of Romanesco is a near-perfect example of naturally occurring fractal: a fragmented geometric shape composed of smaller parts that are copies of the whole. The cauliflower resembles an M.C. Escher print more than something you’d find naturally occurring in your vegetable garden.

“The guys at Caltech come down and study them,” says Alex Weiser of Weiser Family Farms, in whose farmers market stands you’ll find all three varieties of cauliflower. “Something about the Mandelbrot theory.” But you don’t need a degree in mathematics to cook them. Whether they’re fully grown or beautiful babies, Weiser prefers his cauliflower roasted, with just a little sea salt and olive oil splashed on before they’re put in a hot oven.

[Amy Scattergood, "A Brilliant Comeback", Los Angeles Times via Baltimore Sun, undated, read on 19 January 2006.]

Earth from Saturn

Posted by jns on January 17, 2007

This is a most unusual, beautiful, and evocative photograph — and it is an actual photographic image, albeit a composite. The photographer was the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft. On this occasion Saturn interposed itself between the Sun and the spacecraft, thus creating this beautifully backlit composition. Although it is hard to make out in this small version, the dot in the upper-left quadrant of the lower image, indicated by the text, is the Earth, seen through Saturn’s rings.

This version of what is sure to become a famous image came to my attention through NASA’s Earth Observatory website. Visit the original page (“A View of Earth from Saturn“) for larger versions of the image, and lots of information about the image and the Cassini-Huygens mission.

Here is a short excerpt from that page:

This beautiful image of Saturn and its rings looks more like an artist’s creation than a real image, but in fact, the image is a composite (layered image) made from 165 images taken by the wide-angle camera on the Cassini spacecraft over nearly three hours on September 15, 2006. Scientists created the color in the image by digitally compositing ultraviolet, infrared, and clear-filter images and then adjusting the final image to resemble natural color. (A clear filter is one that allows in all the wavelengths of light the sensor is capable of detecting.) The bottom image is a closeup view of the upper left quadrant of the rings, through which Earth is visible in the far, far distance.