Skip to main content
Interactive Mathematics
MATH SOLVER 🤖 Search
Search IntMath
Close

Math movie: First Life with David Attenborough - Oldest Animals

By Murray Bourne, 18 Jun 2011

David Attenborough points out how early life forms - in this case "proto-animals" - made use of fractals as a logical design element. The animals look very fern-like.

A proto-animal can be thought of as a well-developed plant - one that is almost an animal. It has soft cell walls (where a plant's cell walls are hard), and it relies on outside sources for food (rather than making food as plants do with photosynthesis).

Fractals are produced by iterating complex numbers in special ways. See Fractals for some background.

I've been a fan of Attenborough for years. I love his British-reserved (but bubbling, nevertheless) enthusiasm for all living creatures. I also like the way he interprets animal behavior.

Be the first to comment below.

Related posts:

  1. IntMath Newsletter: vision, wealth and slopes 1. Math application: 20/20 vision and trigonometry 2. Math application: Statistics and wealth distribution 3....
  2. Friday Math Movie - Fractals Here's a restful yet inspiring movie featuring fractals and great music....
  3. Friday math movie: David Bolinsky animates a cell Our bodies truly are beautiful and amazing. David Bolinsky from Harvard University talks about changes...
  4. Math movie: The exceptional life of Benjamin Banneker Self-taught mathematician and astronomer Benjamin Banneker excelled despite little formal education and prejudice....
  5. Friday math movie: Math comes to life Here is an excellent way to animate math concepts....

Posted in Math movies category - 18 Jun 2011 [Permalink]

Leave a comment




Comment Preview

HTML: You can use simple tags like <b>, <a href="...">, etc.

To enter math, you can can either:

  1. Use simple calculator-like input in the following format (surround your math in backticks, or qq on tablet or phone):
    `a^2 = sqrt(b^2 + c^2)`
    (See more on ASCIIMath syntax); or
  2. Use simple LaTeX in the following format. Surround your math with \( and \).
    \( \int g dx = \sqrt{\frac{a}{b}} \)
    (This is standard simple LaTeX.)

NOTE: You can mix both types of math entry in your comment.

top

Tips, tricks, lessons, and tutoring to help reduce test anxiety and move to the top of the class.