Tuesday, September 15, 2009

what is a fractal?

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary fractal is defined as “any various extremely irregular curves or shapes for which any suitably chosen part is similar in shape to a given larger or smaller part when magnified or reduced to the same size.” In other words a fractal is a small geometric patter than has been enlarged or reduced to different scales and combined to produce irregular shapes. Examples of a fractal item in nature would be a snowflake or a crystal.

2 comments:

  1. Kudos for including the image. I'd like to see more examples. But more importantly, I think a better definition of the term fractal, especially as it relates to theories of chaos and complexity, is needed.

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  2. My question then becomes how does such a phenomenon related to communications or media? The examples in nature does well to explain it generally but what about its relation to media?

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