Fractal

A fractal is a geometric object which is rough or irregular on all scales of length, and so which appears to be 'broken up' in a radical way. Some of the best examples can be divided into parts, each of which is similar to the original object. Fractals are said to possess infinite detail, and they may actually have a self-similar structure that occurs at different levels of magnification. In many cases, a fractal can be generated by a repeating pattern, in a typically recursive or iterative process. The term fractal was coined in 1975 by Benoît Mandelbrot, from the Latin fractus or "broken". Before Mandelbrot coined his term, the common name for such structures (the Koch snowflake, for example) was monster curve.

Applications

Random fractals have the greatest practical use because they can be used to describe many highly irregular real-world objects. Examples include clouds, mountains, turbulence, coastlines, and trees. Fractal techniques have also been employed in fractal image compression, as well as a variety of scientific disciplines.

Related Topics:
Turbulence - Fractal image compression

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There are various applications http://www.stanford.edu/~jje/fractals/html/applications.html of fractals in the fields of:

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• Classification of histopathology slides in medicine
• Generation of new music
• Generation of various art forms
• Signal and image compression
• Seismology
• Cosmology
• Computer and video game design, especially computer graphics for organic environments