The term "fractal" was coined by Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975. It comes from the Latin fractus, meaning an irregular surface like that of a broken stone. A fractal is a geometric pattern that is self-similar, i.e., if we zoom in on a small portion of the pattern we find a figure that is similar to a larger portion of the original image. Fractals are the kind of shapes we see in nature.
"Fractal Geometry plays two roles. It is the geometry of deterministic chaos
and it can also describe the geometry of mountains, clouds and galaxies."
-- Benoit Mandelbrot
"The art of fractal imaging is like photography: you choose just where to look,
how to frame, lighting and color. The content of the image itself has no history
created by the artist: it always was, and is, existing unchanging in some Platonic realm."
-- Steven Rooke
My appreciation and thanks to Stephen C. Ferguson for giving us great tools to work with !
[Tiera-Zon V2.8/Newton Variations #45 and Paint Shop Pro]
Copyright Lucian Millis, 1999-2007.
