A FEEL FOR FRACTALS
When I walk on the beach close to our holiday cottage, it is shapes that amaze me most.
Lines and circles swirl and curl, forming shapes that repeat and repeat until countless possibilities unite in a visual accord that is nothing short of magic. I once read an article about fractals, describing how an aeroplane following the contours of the coastline would travel a much longer distance than me walking, but would see the same pattern of convolutions between see and land. The same is true for what I see and what the field mouse living in our cottage garden would see when he wonders off amongst the smaller rocks on the beach. In other words, the basic curvy shape of the coastline seen by the pilot is repeated on a smaller scale along my walking path, and on an even smaller scale to the mouse.
This is where the magic lies, in the fact that the mouse and I see similar convolutions to the aeroplane pilot, although each of us encounters a smaller of the piece of the landscape. The pattern formed by the large land mass of the continent repeats in the smaller unit represented by rocks, sand and waves as I see it, but also again in the single pebbles, sand and water drops that the mouse comes across.
Read the full article here:
A feel for fractals.