Introducing Fractal Geometry, 3rd Edition (Introducing)

Some of the not-so-great aspects of the book are that it is almost too short, not quite technical enough, and has grammatical errors all over the place. I read this book in one sitting and it left me wanting to know more. It makes up for this, however, by listing several books about fractals and chaos theory for you to move on to after reading this book as well as telling you the level of expertise one would need to read these other books. The grammatical errors in the book are numerous. It makes me believe that no one proof read this book before it was published.

Overall, this is a great book to start learning about fractals with. If you are a math whiz, then perhaps you might want to look elsewhere for a more formal introduction to the mathematical properties of fractals, but for the layman, this book is great.


This Book is Ok.   October 17, 2004
Mitch (Ohio)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful


I liked this book.

I believe it will have value to someone already knowledgeable about math and/or systems and looking for a quick and easy survey of the ideas they will encounter as they start learning about fractal geometry. This book will NOT make them an expert on the subject.

I've read other, more technical books on fractal geometry and chaos, so nothing here was brand new to me.

As for an introduction for the layman...well, that's a tall order if you hope to go beyond the "gee whiz!" phase with pretty pictures. For that, this book is probably as good as you can reasonably expect.














Glitzy graphics, Disappointing text, Broad coverage   June 15, 2001
John C. Dunbar (Sugar Land, TX United States)
24 out of 28 found this review helpful

Was this a Power Point presentation... gone missing?

First, it's important to realize that this book is part of a series of "Introducing..." books from a UK publisher. So good authors were probably forced to follow a bad format.

That format apparently required glitzy graphics which overpowered the book. Each small page seemed to be on a separate topic... much like a Power Point slide presentation.

There was disappointingly little coverage of the math side of the material. OK, there really was next to none. The saving grace was the coverage of where fractals were being used in practical applications.

Let me tell you a little more on these graphics. They were (professionally done) hand drawn cartoons. Mostly of famous mathematicians having quirky things to say about the subject, on an 8th grade level.

Overall, I think the authors did a fair job of trying to jamb an excellent subject into a stupid book format. The problem lies most likely at the feet of the publisher. This format makes sense for some of their other 8th grade books: "Introducing Feminism"... Freud... Jung... Marx... Einstein, etc. How they were able to pull off "Introducing Math" in one of these small books is probably a story in and of itself. They even have an "Introducing a Post-Feminism" book, if the first one was not enough.

This book was not a complete zero for me, as I did learn many new things. It was a fast read, but I think I have yet to find the best introductory book on Fractals. If you buy this book, you'll never have to pick up a pencil and solve a problem, or even use a calculator. It's just all... a quick read.

John Dunbar