Sunday, September 12, 2010

Earth’s Most Stunning Natural Fractal Patterns











 

The descriptions under each of these pictures are really good.


 


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Romanesco Broccoli



From sea shells and spiral galaxies to the structure of human lungs, the
patterns of chaos are all around us.


Fractals are patterns formed from chaotic equations and contain self-similar
patterns of complexity increasing with magnification. If you divide a fractal
pattern into parts you get a nearly identical reduced-size copy of the
whole.


The mathematical beauty of fractals is that infinite complexity is formed
with relatively simple equations. By iterating or repeating fractal-generating
equations many times, random outputs create beautiful patterns that are unique,
yet recognizable.


We have pulled together some of the most stunning natural examples we could
find of fractals on our planet.

Above:

Romanesco Broccoli


This variant form of cauliflower is the ultimate fractal vegetable. Its
pattern is a natural representation of the Fibonacci or golden spiral, a
logarithmic spiral where every quarter turn is farther from the origin by a
factor of phi, the golden ratio.


Image: Flickr/Tin.G.


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