Fractals in Nature

Fractals are all around us. You are most likely carrying one right now. I’m a programmer and my logo is a fractal snowflake. Per Wikipedia, “a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales”. I’ll start with a simple example of the Cantor Fractal. The Cantor divides a line into three sections and removes the center section. Now we apply the same rule to the previous sections as follows:

Many things in nature are fractal. The chambered nautilus cut in half that spirals into smaller chambers. The sunflower seed has opposing spirals to the smaller seed in the center. The dendritic structure of frost on a window pane. A tree having smaller and smaller branches.

The Cohen Fractal is the featured image. The Cohen Fractal starts with a capital H with serifs. Each H’s serif has a smaller H. Repeat the process with smaller and smaller H’s. This is actually a useful pattern as an antenna for mobile phones.

For further information on fractals in nature you may check out the following articles:

9 Amazing Fractals Found in Nature (treehugger.com)

Fractals in Nature (cosmosmagazine.com)

Spirals in Nature (FractalFooundation.org)