As many as a billion calculations may be needed to generate a single image. Running Fractal Microscope Students can zoom in on portions of the Mandelbrot set and view new images. With only minor promptings by the teacher on how to view the image to find where patterns can be observed, students can explore on their own. 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.
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.