Section 1 - Where did that term "fractal" come from? It sounds like Frankie...Franctl...Fractal?...or not...

According to [link] "The word "fractal" was coined less than twenty years ago by one of history's most creative mathematicians, Benoit Mandelbrot, whose seminal work, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, first introduced and explained concepts underlying this new vision. Although prior mathematical thinkers like Cantor, Hausdorff, Julia, Koch, Peano, Poincare, Richardson, Sierpinski, Weierstrass and others had attained isolated insights of fractal understanding, such ideas were largely ignored until Mandelbrot's genius forged them at a single blow into a gorgeously coherent and fruitful discipline.

Mandelbrot derived the term "fractal" from the Latin verb frangere, meaning to break or fragment. Basically, a fractal is any pattern that reveals greater complexity as it is enlarged. Thus, fractals graphically portray the notion of "worlds within worlds" which has obsessed Western culture from its tenth-century beginnings.

Traditional Euclidean patterns appear simpler as they are magnified; as you home in on one area, the shape looks more and more like a straight line. In the language of calculus such curves are differentiable. The trajectory of an artillery shell is a classic example. But fractals, like dendritic branches of lightning or bumps of broccoli, are not differentiable: the closer you come, the more detail you see. Infinity is implicit and invisible in the computations of calculus but explicit and graphically manifest in fractals.

Whether generated by computers or natural processes, all fractals are spun from what scientists call a "positive feedback loop." Something--data or matter--goes in one "end," undergoes a given, often very slight, modification and comes out the other. Fractals are produced when the output is fed back into the system as input again and again.
Fractals show us that the simplest engines of change often produce exquisitely elaborate patterns. Such systems are at work all around us, from the stock market to the stars. And to the fractal artist, Mandelbrot's insights echo Kandinsky's assertion that "the process of creation is the same in art and nature."

Summary well fractals come from math the word comes from Latin and well now I for one am not a big fan of math. I can do math but you know what it seems boring entertaining and well to all you math majors out there who love math good for you ill get you a Pythagorean Theorem print for you for your birthday if you like ^.^




Section 2 - Can something so convoluted as MATH be ART?!?

When I was making my shop storefront [link] I was faced with this same question. Why in tarnation is something so annoying (remember the fingernails on the chalkboard?) as math made into something as beautiful as art???

Well why is Picasso so great? Why is the freeway only full of traffic when your driving? Why do you ALWAYS get the worst neighbors? Why are all tasty foods bad for you? And most importantly where are all my matching socks?

To all of these I have one simple answer...Gremlins... now how do gremlins have anything to do with are I will tell you (soon as I'm done with this kiwi (m mm kiwi)) now we all know what a gremlin is here you go [link] since we all know what a gremlin is we all can perceive one in our imagination. Now we all know what math is so we perceive it in our imagination and what ya know what? Fractals appear we don't want numbers flying around we want lines planes and whatever else we dream up.




Section 3> - Fractal Appreciation
On devianart fractals have been around for some time one of the first fractal artists on this site is a man by the name of Tom Wilcox [link] however one of the best fractal artists on deviantart is Michael Faber [link] his fractals are considered arguably "the best" by many. However the most popular fractals of all are usually fractals that have been photoshop'd over one another. Such as the current most popular fractal The Phoenix by =Suirebit [link]


Section 4 - Something special fractals gallery.