Reply from Marc West

Marc West — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:45:57 -0000

Cubic and Quartic Equation Debate

Lodovico Ferrari was an Italian mathematician famed for solving the quartic equation. Ferrari was born in 1522 in Bologna and at the age of 14 became the servant of Gerolamo Cardan, a celebrated Italian Renaissance mathematician, physician, astrologer and gambler.

Ferrari showed mathematical promise at a young age, and at the age of 20 became a public lecturer in geometry. He was also a player in a great mathematical controversy of the time – who should get credit for the development of solutions for the cubic and quartic equations.

For more on this debate, read the full Plus story

Reply from Marc West

Marc West — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:42:48 -0000

Rollicking Pollock Debate

Publications in Nature and Plus have explored the proposition that fractal structures within the drip paintings of abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock can be used to identify the painter by his “fractal fingerprint”.

But research led by Case Western Reserve University physics doctoral student Kate Jones-Smith suggests that fractal analysis should not be considered a foolproof technique for authenticating works by Pollock and opened up quite a debate.

In 1999 and 2000, University of Oregon physicist Richard Taylor and colleagues proposed that fractal analysis could be used to discriminate between a Pollock drip painting and one by an impersonator.

It seemed that by 2006 public interest in the matter had waned, but this changed when Taylor was invited by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation to determine the authenticity of paintings found by Alex Matter, a close friend of Pollock’s, who claimed that the paintings were created by Pollock. Taylor claimed, using his criteria for determining if a painting is by Pollock, that they were not indeed Pollock paintings.

With interest in the topic rekindled, Jones-Smith along with Harsh Mathur, recently contended that:

“Several problems must be addressed before fractal analysis can be used to authenticate paintings.”

When coming to her conclusions, Jones-Smith came up with creation in Adobe Photoshop in a matter of minutes and applied Taylor’s fractal authentication criteria – it was found to be a genuine Pollock!

Part of the debate lies with the fundamental aspect of defining a fractal and its fractal dimension.

You can read more on Plus in this article on the topic

Recent replies to "Mathematical Debates"

Reply from Marc West

Reply from Marc West