fractal
fractal (fràk´tel) noun
A geometric pattern that is repeated at ever smaller scales to produce irregular shapes and surfaces that cannot be represented by classical geometry. Fractals are used especially in computer modeling of irregular patterns and structures in nature.
[French, from Latin frâctus, past participle of frangere, to break.]
Fractal, any of many geometric shapes that are complex and detailed at any scale. Fractals are often self-similar- that is, each portion is a reduced-scale replica of the whole. Many such self-repeating figures can be constructed.
French mathematician Benoit B. Mandelbrot discovered fractal geometry in the 1970s. Mandelbrot adopted an abstract definition of dimension, with the result that a fractal cannot be treated mathematically as existing in one, two, or any other whole-number dimensions. It must be treated as having some fractional dimension.
