Michael Fielding Barnsley (born 1946) is a British

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

, researcher and an

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

who has worked on fractal compression; he holds several

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling disclo ...

s on the technology. He received his Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry from

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

in 1972 and BA in mathematics from Oxford in 1968. In 1987 he founded Iterated Systems Incorporated, and in 1988 he published a book entitled ''Fractals Everywhere'' and in 2006 ''SuperFractals''. He has also published these scientific papers: "Existence and Uniqueness of Orbital Measures", "Theory and Applications of Fractal Tops", "A Fractal Valued Random Iteration Algorithm and Fractal Hierarchy", "V-variable fractals and superfractals", "Fractal Transformations" and "Ergodic Theory, Fractal Tops and Colour Stealing". He is also credited for discovering the collage theorem. Iterated Systems was initially devoted to

fractal image compression Fractal compression is a lossy compression method for digital images, based on fractals. The method is best suited for textures and natural images, relying on the fact that parts of an image often resemble other parts of the same image. Fractal a ...

(epitomised by the Barnsley fern), and later focused on image archive management and was renamed to MediaBin. It was acquired in 2003 by Interwoven, by which time Barnsley was no longer affiliated with the company. As of 2005, he is on the faculty of the Mathematical Sciences Institute of the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

. Barnsley previously held a faculty position at

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part o ...

.Michael Barnsley's CV
/ref> Michael Barnsley is the son of author Gabriel Fielding (Alan Fielding Barnsley) and a descendant of

Henry Fielding Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel ''Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders ...

References

External links

Michael Barnsley's Australian National University directory entrySuperFractals
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barnsley, Michael 20th-century British mathematicians 21st-century British mathematicians Chaos theorists University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Georgia Tech faculty Living people British textbook writers British chemists 1946 births