Our guest this week is Hamilton physics professor Kate Jones-Smith) who joins us to discuss the evidence for the claim that drip paintings of Jackson Pollock contain fractal patterns. This hypothesis originates in a paper by Taylor, Micolich, and Jonas titled Fractal analysis of Pollock's drip paintings) which appeared in Nature. Kate and co-author Harsh Mathur) wrote a paper titled Revisiting Pollock's Drip Paintings) which also appeared in Nature. A full text PDF can be found here), but lacks the helpful figures which can be found here), although two images are blurred behind a paywall. Their paper was covered in the New York Times) as well as in USA Today (albeit with with a much more delightful headline: Never mind the Pollock's) [sic]). While discussing the intersection of science and art, the conversation also touched briefly on a few other intersting topics. For example, Penrose Tiles appearing in islamic art) (pre-dating Roger Penrose's investigation of the interesting properties of these tiling processes), Quasicrystal designs in art), Automated brushstroke analysis of the works of Vincent van Gogh), and attempts to authenticate a possible work of Leonardo Da Vinci) of uncertain provenance. Last but not least, the conversation touches on the particularly compellingHockney-Falco Thesis) which is also covered in David Hockney's book Secret Knowledge). For those interested in reading some of Kate's other publications, many Katherine Jones-Smith articles) can be found at the given link, all of which have downloadable PDFs.
