Those Amazing Fractals

[Brutus1964]

Here are some great examples of fractals in nature. It is amazing how many things can fit into a fractal pattern.

For starters what is a fractal?

A geometric pattern that is repeated at ever smaller scales to produce irregular shapes and surfaces that cannot be represented by classical geometry. Fractals are used especially in computer modeling of irregular patterns and structures in nature.

A fractal is a rough or fragmented
geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which
is (at least approximately) a smaller copy of the whole.
Fractals are generally self-similar (bits look like the whole)
and independent of scale (they look similar, no matter how
close you zoom in).

Many mathematical structures are fractals; e.g. Sierpinski
triangle, Koch snowflake, Peano curve, Mandelbrot set
and Lorenz attractor. Fractals also describe many
real-world objects that do not have simple geometric shapes,
such as clouds, mountains, turbulence, and coastlines."

3D Model of a fractal. http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/fractals/gasket/gasket12.gif

Animated Giff of a Mandelbrot Set. http://website.lineone.net/~geoff.burton/mandelb.gif

DNA strand is a fractal http://ory.ph.biu.ac.il/2000/English/dna/dna3.gif


Bacteria Culture http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ma0cmj/images/Fractal/BacteriaCulture.gif

Leaf factal. Notice all three patterns match the previous one.

http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/fractals/selfsimilar/leafscale.jpg

This image can be anything from a plant to a blood vein to a river to a brain neuron.

http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/fractals/fracintro/fracintro10.gif

[Brutus1964]

http://www.fractalcosmology.com/e-fractal2.htm

Anyone interested in fractal cosmology please read this essay.
Very compelling stuff. I will need to get more information on this subject. Since I learned about fractals I have become almost obsessed with them.

What caught my eye the most was his thoeries that if classical science is correct then galaxies could not have had time to make even a single rotation since the big bang.
He makes a good arguement how time and speed is relative to size. I'm not saying what he sais is true but he makes some very good points. I would like someone to read it and give some arguements against it.

[Vortexx]

Fractals are attractive for nature since it can use a recursive function instead of multiple functions and hence need to code less operators/operands to be stored in the genetic information. How else could a tiny seed grow into a large tree? Still mindblowing....

[patcho]

Yeh, Fractals are very cool, never heard of fractal cosmology though, thanks for the link :)