Fractal Explorer

Fractals in nature

There are fractals nearly everywhere you look in the nature. But it is often not easy to determine objects to be fractal objects. I.e. if you see a tree. What do you see? There is a trunk which lead to randomly positioned branches. If you dont know anything about fractals a tree might seem as a very random object. No patterns, no rules. But if you know something about fractals and look closer you can see that basically a tree is a trunk with trees on it. That is a basic pattern that every tree follows.

Another example is fern: Once detected as a fractal object it turns out to be a stem with lots of ferns on it.

This method of observation can be applied to lots of objects:

• coast lines
• mountains
• system of blood vessels
• river networks
• snowflakes
• crystals

Although these examples are often approximate fractals the "fractal point of view" helps us to understand them better and calculate or simulate them.