Mathematical Organics...

Did you know that Benoît Mandelbrot unfortunately died a couple of weeks ago? Do you know what he and Bob Marley have in common? They both have images that in the past have been popular as adornments on student walls.

Benoît Mandelbrot is best known for the fractal geometry shape he studied and popularised which is named after him, the Mandelbrot set. The edge of the Mandelbrot set is a fractal which means it can keep being magnified and it always computes and displays to the same complexity. You can just keep zooming into detail.

You can see the zooming effect of a mandlebrot set on this online mandlebrot generator.

A fern is a kind of fractal because it repeats itself down levels. The sub branch of the fern looks like a full branch and then each single leaf is again the same shape. Each wee indent on the leaf again is the same similar shape.