What is a fractal?
Fractals are ‘broken curves’. They are a class of geometry that has been defined and popularized through the efforts of Benoit Mandelbrot and many others. They break into two main geometric types: deterministic; and random (chaotic). Random fractals are quite familiar and many look like random walks (Brownian motion); dendrites; or lightning bolts. Deterministic fractals take a ‘motif’ or ‘generator’ and apply it on successive size scales. Usually fractals are described as being ‘self-similar’, or ‘self-symmetric’.
