Fractals in Nature

The term fractal was devised by the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975.  In his formative work The Fractal Geometry of Nature, he defines a fractal as “a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which (at least approximately) a reduced-sized copy of the whole” (Mandelbrot, 1983, p. 8).  The term fractal was derived from the Latin fractus meaning “broken” or “fractured.”

A fractal is a never-ending pattern, the laws of nature repeat at different scales. Many patterns in nature are fractals. The forest is inundated with various examples of fractals.

Trees are a natural fractal, in that patterns repeat smaller and smaller copies of themselves.  The branch of a tree is similar to the whole tree or a frond from a fern is a miniature replica of the whole, as shown below with the Douglas Fir tree. Each tree branch, from the trunk to the tips, is a copy of the one that came before. This is the basic principle that we see over and over again in the