Like so many things in modern science and mathematics, discussions of "fractal geometry" can quickly go over the heads of the non-mathematically-minded. This is a real shame, because there is profound beauty and power in the idea of fractals.
The best way to get a feeling for what fractals are is to consider some examples. Clouds, mountains, coastlines, cauliflowers and ferns are all natural fractals. These shapes have something in common - something intuitive, accessible and aesthetic.
They are all complicated and irregular: the sort of shape that mathematicians used to shy away from in favour of regular ones, like spheres, which they could tame with equations.
Mandelbrot famously wrote: "Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line. The chaos and irregularity of the world - Mandelbrot referred to it as "roughness" - is something to be celebrated. Fractal geometry is enlarging our ability to create new devices that work better because they follow patterns that resonate with the natural patterns around us.
Fractals also inspire awe and wonder, especially when you bring your full attention to exploring and mindfully studying them in natural environments like forests.
To expand your understanding of fractals, I highly recommend watching the documentary Fractals: Hunting The Hidden Dimension. Watching it will help you further develop your pattern recognition skills so you can recognize and understand the fractal patterns all around you. If you want to experiment with creating your own fractal patterns, try playing around with Xaos , a free tool from the Fractal Foundation for those who want to get creative with fractals.
Remember Me. Lost your password? Where To Observe Fractals In Nature: Walking through a forest, you will find fractal patterns in the network-like branching patterns everywhere among the ferns, trees, roots, leaves, and the fungal mycelium in the soil. Here are some examples of fractal patterns in nature: 1. Trees Trees are perfect examples of fractals in nature.
Growth Spirals You will also find fractal patterns in growth spirals, which follow a Fibonacci Sequence also referred to as the Golden Spiral and can be seen as a special case of self-similarity. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. By Shea Gunther Shea Gunther. Shea Gunther is a writer, entrepreneur, and podcaster living in Portland, Maine.
He covers topics such as renewable energy, climate change, and nature. Learn about our editorial process. Or maybe the pathways of lightning and the way a river breaks through the earth? These patterns are called fractals.
A fractal is a kind of pattern that we observe often in nature and in art. Another way to think of this is, when you zoom in on a small part of a fractal pattern, it looks just like the whole thing. One of the most famous fractals is the Mandelbrot Set. The Mandelbrot Set refers to a fractal that a man named Benoit Mandelbrot generated from a simple mathematical equation with the help of computers.
If you were able to zoom into the image below indefinitely, you would find that the pattern keeps on repeating infinitely. The visualization of the Mandelbrot set shows that very complex, entirely unexpected structures can result from very simple mathematical rules.
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