Jonathan Wolfe’s vision is as limitless as the fractals that dominate his mind.
A balloonist, artist and scientist,“The Fractal Man” is on his way to spreading fractal knowledge worldwide.
“It’s incredibly gratifying as an artist to impact so many people so powerfully,” Wolfe said. “It’s like taking some spark of imagination and making it real.”
Wolfe’s passion for these simple and repeating, yet weirdly complex patterns began in 1987, when he was at Albuquerque Academy and his friend sketched one out. Not yet envisioning a career in fractals, he earned his doctorate in visual neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, expecting to become a professor like his father.
While researching his thesis,Wolfe traveled to Vermont to construct a tie-dyed hot air balloon.
Upon completion, Wolfe had a post-doctorate fellowship available to him. However, the limited influence of a typical neuroscientist left him wanting more.
“I’d work really hard to publish a paper in a scientific journal and maybe 10 to 20 people would read it, and only a few would understand or care,” Wolfe said. “I wanted to make a bigger impact than that.”
His change in motivation led him back to Albuquerque to pursue art and where his fractal balloon got attention.
A school teacher invited him to teach her students fractals after she approached the landing site of his multi-colored balloon. He then became motivated to “fractalize” people.
“Motivation is key. People are very smart. They can learn whatever they want,” Wolfe said. “They have to have a reason to learn. The way we teach math in school right now doesn’t motivate or inspire, and that’s what the great promise of fractals is.”
Wolfe said he has already spoken to 30,000 children about fractals.
His growing audience prompted him to gather a group of people, also interested in chaos complexity fractals that now compose the Board of Directors for the Fractal Foundation.
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The foundation’s efforts have “fractalized” themselves, branching out as far as Australia where it is planning on establishing a sister foundation. Wolfe has spoken with museums around America about setting up fractal shows.
“What we have is like the Holy Grail for science museums,” he said.
In addition to maintaining and spreading the Foundation’s work, Wolfe is the New Mexico regional contact for Burning Man, an annual collaborative artistic effort in Nevada.
Though his energy is dividedamong many projects, his mission to open the world’s eyes to the possibilities illustrated by fractals has not weakened. He said he wants to shift society and its opinion of those considered geeky.
Wolfe said he even plans to delve back into neuroscience research to discover the effect of fractal zooms on the human mind, and he
potentially plans to collaborate with the Mind Research Network.
The fractal shows are availablefor general audiences at the planetarium, zooming to infinity with a soundtrack customized to sync with the visual dives.
“One of the lessons I love sharing through fractals is that there are no limits,” he said.
