Fractal - Natural Phenomena With Fractal Features

Natural Phenomena With Fractal Features

Further information: Patterns in nature

Approximate fractals found in nature display self-similarity over extended, but finite, scale ranges. The connection between fractals and leaves, for instance, is currently being used to determine how much carbon is contained in trees.

Examples of phenomena known or anticipated to have fractal features are listed below:

  • clouds
  • river networks
  • fault lines
  • mountain ranges
  • craters
  • lightning bolts
  • coastlines
  • animal coloration patterns
  • Romanesco broccoli
  • heart rates
  • heartbeat
  • earthquakes
  • snow flakes
  • crystals
  • blood vessels and pulmonary vessels
  • ocean waves
  • DNA
  • various vegetables (cauliflower & broccoli)
  • Psychological subjective perception
Frost crystals formed naturally on cold glass illustrate fractal process development in a purely physical system
A fractal is formed when pulling apart two glue-covered acrylic sheets
High voltage breakdown within a 4″ block of acrylic creates a fractal Lichtenberg figure
Romanesco broccoli, showing self-similar form approximating a natural fractal
A simple fractal consisting of "rectangular" leaves developing into a "rectangular" fern

Read more about this topic:  Fractal

Famous quotes containing the words natural, phenomena and/or features:

    “The superstition respecting power and office is going to the ground. The stream of human affairs flows its own way, and is very little affected by the activity of legislators. What great masses of men wish done, will be done; and they do not wish it for a freak, but because it is their state and natural end.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “Hence anyone who seeks for the true cause of miracles, and strives to understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being, and not to gaze at them as a fool, is set down and denounced as a impious heretic by those, whom the masses adore as the interpreters of nature and the gods.”
    —Baruch (Benedict)

    “All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!”
    —Herman Melville (1819–1891)