NCSA is developing software and experimenting with commercially available software programs for teaching math and science. Teachers are encouraged to participate in programming efforts and software design that address concepts they are teaching.
The calculation used in the Mandelbrot set takes a complex number, represented in the form of a point on a graph--one coordinate is a real number and the other an imaginary one--which corresponds to a pixel location. This number is squared and then added to its original value. The result of this calculation is squared, then added to the original value, and this process is repeated until a number greater than 2 is produced. As many as a billion calculations may be needed to generate a single image.
Running the Fractal Microscope program with a supercomputer allows results to be viewed in a matter of seconds--or minutes, for extremely magnified images. By comparison, many of the images would take hours just to plot on a microcomputer, making the activity impractical for a classroom setting. Speed enabled by the ISDN link makes it possible for teachers to get students interested in math by rapidly creating attention-grabbing fractal images. Teachers then use the images to illustrate the concepts they want to convey.
Fractal Microscope is only one of many software programs NCSA's Education Group uses with schools. Others include Chem Viz, Interactive Galaxy Simulation, and Biology Explorer. Plans are already underway to create documents using NCSA Mosaic for next fall.