Fractals

Fractals are to chaos what geometry is to algebra.

- J. C. Sprott.

The term fractal was invented by Benoit Mandelbrot, who created the whole field of fractal
mathematics. It comes from the Latin adjective fractus. The verb form of the word, frangere,
means to break apart, or to create irregular fragments. Fractals look at the natural world not as
regular and continuous as mathematics previously had done, but as irregular with discontinuities,
a nature composed of fragments. But surprisingly there is a new order that we begin to see when
we look at nature as fragmented: the fragments combine over and over to make the wholes. Two
of many definitions of fractal include:

a complex geometric figure whose small-scale and large-scale structures resemble one
another.
A mathematically generated pattern that is reproducible at any magnification or
reduction.

These are just the characteristics we will encounter with fractals,

especially in the ultimate fractal: the Mandelbrot set. The most famous
traditional attempt to portray this quality is the Taijitu, the classic Yin
Yang symbol: This symbol represents the unity of yin and yang, where
each contains the other. The small dots inside each half portray this
containment. But, by implication, there is no end to this process: the
yin within the yang in turn contains both yin and yang, and the process
continues endlessly.

To put it in a single word, fractals are self-similar; that is, they look the same no matter where
you look within the fractal. Mathematics had discovered many such unusual geometric figures
which predated Mandelbrot's discovery of fractals. For example, in a 1904 paper, the Swedish
mathematician Helge von Koch presented what has come to be known as the Koch snowflake.
Take an equilateral triangle (i.e., each side is the same size). Then divide each side into thirds and
on the middle third build another equilateral triangle. Continue this process with those triangles,
and with all subsequent triangles. The figure on the left below shows this process progressing
through four stages. The figure on the right shows the result after eight stages.
A closely related figure which reveals the self-similarity even more strongly, is the Sierpinski
triangle, described by mathematician Waclaw Sierpinski in 1916. In this case, take another
equilateral triangle, but this time, divide it into 4 equilateral triangles and remove the middle one.
Continue this process with all the triangles that emerges. Or instead of a triangle, take a square,
divide it into smaller squares and remove the middle ones. Again the process continues. The
process can be used just as readily on 3-dimensional objects or even higher dimensional objects,
though of course we can no longer see what those look like. The most famous of the 3-
dimensional objects is the Sierpinski cube. Here are pictures of the Sierpinski triangle, square,
and cube.