Abstract
Euclidian geometry describes the world as a pattern of simple shapes: spheres, triangles, lines, and so on, with an intuitively clear concept of dimension: 0 for a point, 1 for a line, 2 for a plane, and so on. However, this classic picture is not a complete image of Nature, for “Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.” B. Mandelbrot, who developed the new family of shapes and coined the term fractal, gives one of the possible definitions: “A fractal is a shape made of parts similar to the whole in some way.”
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Further Reading
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(2003). Fractals and Growth Phenomena. In: Kleman, M., Lavrentovich, O.D. (eds) Soft Matter Physics: An Introduction. Partially Ordered Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-21759-8_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-21759-8_7
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