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Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Fractals 1 of 5: Beauty, fun, and more

Jitze Couperus

A fractal is any shape that repeats itself over and over and over again at different sizes and scales.You can zoom in and find the same shapes forever.

Besides being beautiful and fun, fractals are very useful! For example, they can be used to predict or analyze parts of the human body, such as the inside of our lungs or the pattern of nerve dendrites. Another important use of fractals is in image compressing, so that some of our photos don't take up too much space in our computers! It’s mostly used if an image has patterns that are repeated (fractals!) .

Drawing, weaving, beading, building…

Indigenous people have used fractals since long before modern-day mathematicians:

Dreamcatchers can have fractal designs, like

https://shop.slcc.ca/learn/the-dreamcatcher/

Look at the fractal nature of parts of our universe in artist Margaret Nazon's beading work:
http://robertthirsk.ca/2018/10/19/the-spirit-of-innovation/
https://www.nwtarts.com/artist-profile/margaret-nazon

Many African cultures have long used fractals in their architecture, art, and other aspects of their culture, as explained in Ron Eglash’s book “African Fractals - Modern Computing and Indigenous Design” https://monoskop.org/images/f/fc/Eglash_Ron_African_Fractals_Modern_Computing_and_Indigenous_Design.pdf








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