One of the earliest applications of fractals came about well before the term was even

used. Lewis Fry Richardson was an English mathematician in the early 20th century
studying the length of the English coastline. He reasoned that the length of a coastline
depends on the length of the measurement tool. Measure with a yardstick, you get one
number, but measure with a more detailed foot-long ruler, which takes into account more
of the coastline's irregularity, and you get a larger number, and so on.

Carry this to its logical conclusion and you end up with an infinitely long coastline
containing a finite space, the same paradox put forward by Helge von Koch in the Koch
Snowflake. This fractal involves taking a triangle and turning the central third of each
segment into a triangular bump in a way that makes the fractal symmetric. Each bump is,
of course, longer than the original segment, yet still contains the finite space within.
Weird, but rather than converging on a particular number, the perimeter moves towards
infinity. Mandelbrot saw this and used this example to explore the concept of fractal
dimension, along the way proving that measuring a coastline is an exercise in
approximation [source: NOVA].

https://science.howstuffworks.com/math-concepts/fractals.htm

The Most Famous Fractal by John Briggs

Largely because of its haunting beauty, the Mandelbrot set has become the most famous
object in modern mathematics. It is also the breeding ground for the world's most famous
fractals. Since 1980, the set has provided an inspiration for artists, a source of wonder for
schoolchildren, and a fertile testing ground for the science of linear dynamics.

The set itself is a mathematical artifact—an odd-shaped infinite swarm of points clustered
on what is known as the "complex number plane." Let's try to visualize it.

Picturing the plane

To make them tangible, we imagine real numbers like 1, 2, 3... as spaced out along a
number line. Because complex numbers have two parts to them—called their "real" and
"imaginary" parts—making complex numbers tangible requires two lines, or axes, which
means a plane. Picture the plane dotted by complex numbers as a computer screen, which
is just where the visual form of the Mandelbrot set was discovered.

Like the screen of your television set, a computer screen is covered with a host of very
tiny, evenly spaced points, called pixels. The moving image on the screen is made when
patterns of pixels are excited (made to glow) by a fast-moving scanning beam of
electrons. Think of each pixel as a complex number. The pixels in any neighborhood are
numerically close to each other, just as 3 and 4 are numerically close to each other on the
real number line. Pixels (numbers) are made to glow by applying an iterative equation to
them.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s Benoit Mandelbrot, the inventor of fractal geometry,
and several others were using simple iterative equations to explore the behavior of
numbers on the complex plane. [Read an interview with Mandelbrot.] A very simple way
to view the operation of an iterative equation is as follows:

Start with one of the numbers on the complex plane and put its value in the "Fixed
Number" slot of the equation. In the "Changing Number" slot put zero. Now calculate the
equation, take the "Result," and slip it into the "Changing Number" slot. Repeat the
whole operation again (in other words, recalculate and "iterate" the equation) and watch
what happens to the "Result." Does it hover around a fixed value, does it spiral toward
infinity quickly, or does it stagger upward by a slower expansion?

A mathematical marvel
When iterative equations are applied to points in a certain region of the complex plane,
the results are spectacular. By treating the pixels on computer screens as points on the
plane, even nonmathematicians can now admire this marvel. In fact, without computers,
only the most intuitive mathematicians could have glimpsed what was there. With the
computer it works like this:

Starting with the value of a point (or pixel) and applying the equation to it, iterate the
equation perhaps 1,000 times. If the "Result" remains stable, color the pixel black. If the
number heads at one speed or another toward infinity, paint it a different color, assigning
colors for each rate of movement. The points (pixels) representing the fastest-expanding
numbers might be colored red, slightly slower ones magenta, very slow ones blue—
whatever color scheme the fractal explorer decides. Now move on to the next pixel and
do the same thing with the color palette until all the pixels on the screen have been
colored.

Artists and the public have been attracted by the set's haunting beauty.
When all the pixels (or points representing complex numbers) have been iterated by the
equation, a pattern emerges. The pattern that Mandelbrot and others discovered in one
region of the complex plane was a long-proboscidean insect shape of stable points—the
Mandelbrot set itself, usually shown in black—surrounded by a flaming boundary of
filigreed detail that includes miniature, slightly distorted replicas of the insect shape, and
layer upon layer of self-similar forms.

Infinitely fine
The boundary area of the set is infinitely complex, therefore fractal, because it is possible
to bring out finer and finer detail. Computer graphics artists call the process of unfolding
the detail "zooming in" on the set's boundary or "magnifying" it. It's fairly easy to grasp
what this means.

On the real-number line we routinely imagine that between the numbers 1 and 2 are other
numbers, 1.5, for example, or 1.6. (We encounter this every time we pick up a ruler.) Of
course, between those numbers are still more numbers—1.53 and 1.54, for example—and
so on, indefinitely. The same is true for the numbers on the complex plane. Between any
two of them are many more, and between those many more are many more still, ad
infinitum. These numbers between numbers allow us to use the computer like a
microscope to dive into increasingly deeper detail. [Dive in yourself with A Sense of
Scale.]

To extend our analogy, if the numbers we were examining on the complex plane were all
like the numbers at the level of, say, 1, 2, 3, etc., on a ruler, then we would be examining
the largest scale of numbers. But we could also go to a smaller scale and examine the
numbers at the level of 1.5, 1.6. Between those will be yet a smaller scale (including the
numbers 1.53 and 1.54, for example), and so in any region of the complex plane we could
move downward (or inward) to smaller and smaller scales.

Similarly, explorers of the Mandelbrot set can zoom in to study finer and finer detail as
they examine the ever smaller scales of numbers between numbers on the complex plane.
Indeed, a home computer can examine numbers out to 15 decimal points. To complete
the microscope analogy, if the numbers 1 and 2 were the equivalent of objects the size of
human beings and trees, a number 15 decimal points smaller would be an object tinier
than an atom. More powerful computers can go into even finer (or deeper) detail. In
addition, different styles of iterative equations can act as prisms to display varying facets
of the behavior of the complex numbers around the set.

Applying zoom-ins and different iterative prisms to the numbers in the boundary area of
the Mandelbrot set has revealed that this region is a mathematical strange attractor. The
"strange attractor" name here applies to the set because it is self-similar at many scales, is
infinitely detailed, and attracts points (numbers) to certain recurrent behavior. Scientists
study the set for insights into the nonlinear (chaotic) dynamics of real systems. For
example, the wildly different behavior exhibited when two numbers with almost the same
starting value and lying next to each other in the set's boundary are iterated is similar to
the behavior of systems like the weather undergoing dynamic flux because of its
"sensitive dependence on initial conditions."

Strange attraction
But a major importance of the set may be that it has become a strange attractor for
scientists, artists, and the public, though each may be drawn to it for quite different
reasons. Scientists have found themselves attracted—often with childlike delight—to a
new aesthetic that involves the artistic choices of color and detail they must make when
exploring the set. Artists and the public have been attracted by the set's haunting beauty
and the idea of abstract mathematics turned into tangible pleasures. [Make your own
tangible pleasures—see Design a Fractal.]

Homer Smith, cofounder of an independent research group based at Cornell University,

produces fractal images with the aim of attracting young children to mathematics. [See
some of Smith's stunning images in A Radical Mind.] "We hope that fractals show up in
early classrooms, to get kids interested in mathematics very early," Smith says, "because
it really opens the eyes of children who haven't been turned off by education... We hope
by the time they get up to the tenth grade, they'll have seen these things and say, 'There's
something here in math, science, and computers that I want to learn.'"

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/fractals/set.html

Research team demonstrates fractal light from lasers

by Wits University

A cross section of a fractal pattern, created by a laser in the Wits Structured Light
Laboratory. Credit: Wits University

Fractal patterns are common in nature, including in the geometric patterns of a tortoise
shell, the structure of a snail shell, the leaves of a succulent plant that repeat to create an
intricate pattern, and the frost pattern on a car's windshield in winter.

Fractals have the distinctive feature of a repeating geometry with structure at multiple
scales, and are found everywhere, from Romanesco broccoli to ferns, and even at larger
scales such as salt flats, mountains, coastlines and clouds. The shapes of trees and
mountains are also self-similar, such that a branch looks like a small tree and a rocky
outcrop like a small mountain.

For the past two decades, scientists have predicted that fractal light could be created with
a laser. With its highly polished spherical mirrors, a laser is almost the precise opposite of
nature, and so it came as a surprise when, in 1998, researchers predicted fractal light
beams emitted from a class of lasers. Now, a team from South Africa and Scotland have
demonstrated that fractal light can be created from a laser, verifying the prediction of two
decades.

Reporting this month in Physical Review A, the team provides the first experimental
evidence for fractal light from simple lasers and adds a new prediction: that the fractal
pattern should exist in 3-D and not just 2-D, as previously thought.

Several patterns of fractal light, created by a laser in the Wits Structured Light
Laboratory. Credit: Wits University

Nature creates such "patterns within patterns" by many recursions of a simple rule, for
example, to produce a snowflake. Computer programmes also make fractals by looping
through the rule repeatedly, famously producing the abstract Mandelbrot set.

The light inside lasers also cycles back and forth, bouncing between the mirrors on each
pass, which can be set to image the light into itself on each round trip. This looks just like
a recursive loop, repeating a simple rule over and over. The imaging means that each
time the light returns to the image plane, it is a smaller (or larger) version of what it was:
a pattern within a pattern within a pattern.

Fractals have applications in imaging, networks, antennas and even medicine. The team
expects that the discovery of fractal forms of light that can be engineered directly from a
laser should open new applications and technologies based on these exotic states of
structured light.

Fractals are a truly fascinating phenomenon linked to what is known as chaos," says
Professor Andrew Forbes from the University of the Witwatersrand, who led the project
together with with Professor Johannes Courtial of the University of Glasgow. "In the
popular science world, chaos is known as the 'Butterfly Effect,' where a small change in
one place makes a big change somewhere else—for example, a butterfly beating its wings
in Asia causes a hurricane in the USA. This has been proven to be true."

The laser instrument setup used to create fractal patterns of light. Credit: Wits University

In explaining the fractal light discovery, Forbes explains that his team realised the
importance of where to look for fractals in a laser. "Look at the wrong place inside the
laser and you see just a smeared-out blob of light. Look in the right place, where the
imaging happens, and you see fractals."

The project combined theoretical expertise from the Glasgow team with experimental
validation in South Africa by Wits and CSIR (Council for Scientific and Insdustrial
Research) researchers. The initial version of the experiment was built by Dr. Darryl
Naidoo (of the CSIR and Wits) and completed by Hend Sroor (Wits) as part of her Ph.D.
"What is amazing is that, as predicted, the only requirement to demonstrate the effect is a
simple laser with two polished spherical mirrors. It was there all the time, just hard to see
if you were not looking at the right place," says Courtial.

Explore further

Beautiful math of fractals

https://phys.org/news/2019-01-team-fractal-lasers.html

Beautiful math of fractals

by Montana State University

(PhysOrg.com) -- What do mountains, broccoli and the stock market have in common?
The answer to that question may best be explained by fractals, the branch of geometry
that explains irregular shapes and processes, ranging from the zigs and zags of coastline
to Wall Street market risk.

Because fractal geometry is relatively new -- the term was coined in 1975 by the late
Benoit Mandelbrot, -- it is a concept not well understood by a portion of the population.

Casey Donoven, one of Montana State University's newest recipients of the prestigious
Goldwater Scholarship for excellence in science and math, uses fractals in his research to
understand variations in heartbeats.

Donoven, who hails from a family farm outside Kremlin-Gilford, first learned about
fractals while a student at Havre High School. At MSU, he has been studying under math
professor Lukas Geyer.

What is a fractal?

A fractal is a geometric pattern that repeats at every level of magnification. Another way
to explain it might be to use Mandelbrot's own definition that "a fractal is a geometric
shape that can be separated into parts, each of which is a reduced-scale version of the
whole." Think of Russian nesting dolls.

Fractals are common in nature and are found nearly everywhere. An example is broccoli.
Every branch of broccoli looks just like its parent stalk. The surface of the lining of your
lungs has a fractal pattern that allows for more oxygen to be absorbed. Such complex
real-world processes can be expressed in equations through fractal geometry. Even to the
everyday person, fractals are generally neat to look at even if you don't understand what a
fractal is. But to a mathematician, it is a neat, neat subject area.

Why are fractals important?

Fractals help us study and understand important scientific concepts, such as the way
bacteria grow, patterns in freezing water (snowflakes) and brain waves, for example.
Their formulas have made possible many scientific breakthroughs. Wireless cell phone
antennas use a fractal pattern to pick up the signals better, and pick up a wider range of
signals, rather than a simple antenna. Anything with a rhythm or pattern has a chance of
being very fractal-like.

Why do we hear so much about fractals now?

Actually, some fractals were understood long before Mandelbrot coined the term. He
popularized the concept with computer graphics and pictures of fractal patterns in nature.
While, the Mandelbrot set and Julia sets (two well-known fractals) were investigated in
the early 20th century, they never left the mathematical/physical "ghetto" until fast
computers and good computer graphics came along, which in turn led to a wave of new
research and better understanding.

Explore further

Remembering the father of fractals

https://phys.org/news/2011-10-beautiful-math-fractals.html

Astrophysicists find fractal image of Sun's 'Storm

Season' imprinted on Solar Wind
Plasma astrophysicists at the University of Warwick have found that key information
about the Sun’s 'storm season’ is being broadcast across the solar system in a fractal
snapshot imprinted in the solar wind. This research opens up new ways of looking at both
space weather and the unstable behaviour that affects the operation of fusion powered
power plants.

Fractals, mathematical shapes that retain a complex but similar patterns at different
magnifications, are frequently found in nature from snowflakes to trees and coastlines.
Now Plasma Astrophysicists in the University of Warwick’s Centre for Fusion, Space
and Astrophysics have devised a new method to detect the same patterns in the solar
wind.

The researchers, led by Professor Sandra Chapman, have also been able to directly tie
these fractal patterns to the Sun’s ‘storm season’. The Sun goes through a solar cycle
roughly 11 years long. The researchers found the fractal patterns in the solar wind occur
when the Sun was at the peak of this cycle when the solar corona was at its most active,
stormy and complex – sunspot activity, solar flares etc. When the corona was quieter no
fractal patterns were found in the solar wind only general turbulence.

This means that fractal signature is coming from the complex magnetic field of the sun.
This new information will help astrophysicists understand how the solar corona heats the
solar wind and the nature of the turbulence of the Solar Wind with its implications for
cosmic ray flux and space weather.

These techniques used to find and understand the fractal patterns in the Solar Wind are
also being used to assist the quest for fusion power. Researchers in the University of
Warwick’s Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics (CFSA) are collaborating with
scientists from the EURATOM/UKAEA fusion research programme to measure and
understand fluctuations in the world leading fusion experiment MAST (the Mega Amp
Spherical Tokamak) at Culham. Controlling plasma fluctuations in tokamaks is important
for getting the best performance out of future fusion power plants.

Source: University of Warwick

https://phys.org/news/2007-05-astrophysicists-fractal-image-sun-storm.html