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To: Aikonaa
Parts of plants often have fractal forms -- this doesn't mean that your house plant is the next coming of Einstein.

Scientific discoveries, then, are not observing and putting to use the order that exists in the natural world, but inventing something that has not previously existed?

265 posted on 02/23/2007 7:53:04 AM PST by lucysmom
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To: lucysmom
[someone made a point that plants don't understand fractals just because they make fractal-like shapes] Scientific discoveries, then, are not observing and putting to use the order that exists in the natural world, but inventing something that has not previously existed?

Rather, scientific discovery involves finding explanations for how the natural world works. Penrose (so I am given to understand from the article) found an explanation for understanding how/whether a nonrepeating tiling could exist in a 2-D plane. That would be a scientific discovery.

The artisan who put those tiles up and seems to have come across an instance of what Penrose was talking about, was not creating an explanation and hence did not make a scientific discovery.

It's the difference between throwing a ball up in the air and watching it fall down, and coming up with Newton's gravitational theory. Someone who does the former hasn't demonstrated an understanding of the latter and certainly has made no "breakthrough".

304 posted on 02/24/2007 10:59:59 PM PST by Dr. Frank fan
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