189

18

Preliminaries of Fractal Differential Equations

Fractal analysis is a subject of great interest in various science and engineering

applications, especially in computer graphics, architecture [1], medicine
[2], fractal antennas [3], etc. Differential equations over fractal domain
are often referred to as fractal differential equations. In this context, a
basic idea of fractals and notion of fractal differential equations have been
incorporated.

18.1 Introduction to Fractal

Nature often exhibits irregularity, nonlinearity, and complexity. Even, the clas-
sical Euclidean geometrical shapes viz. lines, circles, quadrilaterals, spheres,
etc. lack to abstractly define the complex structures of nature. For instance, the
clouds, coastlines, rocks, trees, etc. may not be completely expressed in terms
of the classical geometry. In this regard, a new class of geometry was developed
by Benoit B. Mandelbrot, mainly referred to as fractal geometry (based on a new
family of shapes named as fractals).
Benoit B. Mandelbrot [4] introduced the concept of fractals and fractal geom-
etry in an imaginative way. A creative bench mark “The Fractal Geometry of
Nature” [5] written by Mandelbrot serves as a standard book for elementary
concepts of fractals. In a more conventional way, the definition of fractals given
by Mandelbrot [5] is stated as,

A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch

Dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension.
—B. B. Mandelbrot

Here, Hausdorff Besicovitch dimensional is referred to as the fractional

dimension. In this regard, we illuminate glimpses of fractal dimension and

Advanced Numerical and Semi-Analytical Methods for Differential Equations, First Edition.
Snehashish Chakraverty, Nisha Rani Mahato, Perumandla Karunakar, and Tharasi Dilleswar Rao.
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
190 18 Preliminaries of Fractal Differential Equations

its distinction from Euclid dimension. Generally, in the Euclidean space, the
dimension is integer whereas in the case of fractals the fractal dimension may
not be an integer [5, 6]. For a delineated explanation of fractals, we encourage
the readers to refer the interesting book [5]. The book brings a clear picture
of fractals viz. Koch curves, snowflakes, Sierpinski gasket (SG) and its broad
range of advanced ideas viz. fractal singularities of differential equations,
fractal lattices, self-mapping fractals, randomness, etc. Other standard books
for a detailed study of fractals can be found in Refs. [6–10] and further, fractal
applications may be found in Refs. [2, 3, 11–13].
In the next section, we discuss few basic shapes of fractal geometry viz. triadic
Koch curve, snowflake, and SG.

18.1.1 Triadic Koch Curve

Koch curve is one of the earliest and simplest fractal curve constructed using
the Euclidean line segment of unit length as given in Table. 18.1.
The figures given in Table 18.1 have been reproduced using the MATLAB
code given by D. Scherzinger in http://m2matlabdb.ma.tum.de/download.jsp?
MC_ID=5&SC_ID=13&MP_ID=105. Similarly, a Koch snowflake (Figure 18.1)
may be generated using an equilateral triangle instead of line segment consid-
ered in the Koch curve.
The snowflake given in Figure 18.1 has been reproduced using the
MATLAB code given in https://codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/
144700/plotting-the-koch-snowflake.

18.1.2 Sierpinski Gasket

SG is named after Polish mathematician W. Sierpinski. The most commonly
known SG given in Table 18.2 (is formed
) using equilateral triangle by removal
1
of middle inscribed triangle of 4 th area. Sometimes, SG is also referred to as
limit of pre-gaskets Gm as
SG = lim Gm .
m→∞

Figures of Gm and SG have been reconstructed through MATLAB exchange

file downloaded from https://in.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/
50417-sierpinski-fractal-triangle.
Further, the figures of Gm and SG have been incorporated into Table 18.2.
Generally, the fractal analysis is not used as a direct approach for solving
differential equations. But, the inverse approach of formulating differential
equations from fractals is possible using construction of Laplacian on the SG
and related fractals. In this regard, we have discussed briefly fractal differential
equations over SG in the next section.
 18.2 Fractal Differential Equations 191

Table 18.1 Triadic Koch curve for n = 0, 1, 2, 4, and 8 iterations.

Length of
Number of Each Koch
Triadic Koch curve segments segment curve

Number of iterations: 0 1 1 1

1 4
4 3 3

Number of iterations: 1
( )2
1 4
42 32 3

Number of iterations: 2
( )3
1 4
43 33 3

Number of iterations: 4
( )4
1 4
44 34 3

Number of iterations: 8

18.2 Fractal Differential Equations

A pioneer work on fractal differential equations on SG has been carried
out by Dalrymple et al. [14]. In this regard, let us illustrate the work of
Dalrymple et al. [14] for heat and wave equations in Sections 18.2.1 and 18.2.2,
respectively.
192 18 Preliminaries of Fractal Differential Equations

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

–0.2

–0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2

Figure 18.1 Koch snowflake for eight iterations.

18.2.1 Heat Equation

This section discusses the heat equation
𝜕u
= Δx u (18.1)
𝜕t
subject to Dirichlet boundary conditions

u(pj , t) = 0, j = 0, 1, 2 (18.2)

and the initial condition

u(x, 0) = f (x) (18.3)

where Δ represents the symmetric Laplacian defined by Kigami [15] on a Sier-

pinski triangle. Here, u(x, t) is a function of x ∈ SG and 0 ≤ t ∈ ℜ.
The algorithms for computing the approximate solution of Eq. (18.1) may
be found in greater detail in Ref. [14]. But, for the sake of completeness, the
difference equation obtained using the procedure given in Ref. [14] are repro-
duced in Eq. (18.4) by restricting time t to integer multiples (in terms of k) for
timescale h.
(( ) )
∑
u(x, (k + 1)h) − u(x, kh) = h5m u(y, kh) − 4u(x, kh) (18.4)
(x,y)∈Em

where Em are the edges of pre-gasket Gm .

 18.2 Fractal Differential Equations 193

Table 18.2 Sierpinski triangle for n = 0, 1, 2, 4, and 8 iterations.

Number of iterations Pre-gaskets Gm Sierpinski triangle

0 G0

1 G1

2 G2

4 G4

(Continued)
194 18 Preliminaries of Fractal Differential Equations

Table 18.2 (Continued)

Number of iterations Pre-gaskets Gm Sierpinski triangle

8 G8

18.2.2 Wave Equation

In this section, we consider wave equation
𝜕2u
= Δx u (18.5)
𝜕t 2
subject to boundary conditions u(pj , t) = 0; j = 0, 1, 2 and initial conditions
𝜕u(x, 0)
u(x, 0) = f (x) and = g(x) (18.6)
𝜕t
where x ∈ SG and 0 ≤ t ∈ ℜ. Similar to the heat equation, the difference
equation associated with Eq. (18.5) for computation of approximate solution is
written as
u(x, (k + 2)h) − 2u(x, (k + 1)h) + u(x, kh)
(( ) )
∑
2 m
=h 5 u(y, kh) − 4u(x, kh) (18.7)
(x,y)∈Em

using the procedure given in Ref. [14].

It may be noted that the present chapter has been devoted only to illustrate
the basic ideas of fractals and differential equations over fractals. As such,
Sections 18.2.1 and 18.2.2 just give an overview of application of differential
equations over fractals. The detailed analysis of Eqs. (18.1) and (18.5) may be
found in Ref. [14]. Further, readers interested in having a thorough knowledge
of fractal differential equations and fractal-time dynamical systems are highly
encouraged to refer Refs. [16, 17].

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