Home > Tutorials > What are Fractals? > Fractals Lesson Plan > What are fractals?

What are fractals?

PowerPoint of fractal images

Fractals are shapes that can be split into many parts, and each part will look approximately like the whole thing.

Some fractals can be made by hand. For example the Koch Curve is an example of a simple fractal that can be drawn by hand, (at least up to 3 iterations)

Individual images

This animation was created using a Java applet http://www.arcytech.org/java/fractals/koch.shtml

Fractals in Nature

As well as drawing fractals you can grow them!

Walker, J. (2005). Fractal food: Self-similarity on the supermarket shelf. http://www.fourmilab.ch/images/Romanesco/ Retrieved May 30, 2011.
This document and all images and programs included herein are in the public domain.

Walker, J. (1998). Switzerland from Space. Retrieved from http://www.fourmilab.ch/images/suisse_espace/ May 30, 2011.

Nature is full of fractals (PowerPoint) 12.37 MB

Fractals from space (PowerPoint) 22.39 MB

Guess What (PowerPoint) 11 MB

Fractals in you

http://www.seanet.com/~garyteachout/java/tree3.html

The most famous fractal is the Mandelbrot set we will be creating our own Mandelbrot fractals in the lab.

The mandelbrot set is way to complex to draw by hand. The only way to create an mandelbrot set is to use a computer program. The program that we will be using is called Ultra Fractal.

You can download version 2.04 and install it at home if you wish. I have also created a set of notes that explain how to install and use Ultra Fractal 2.04.

APA citation:
Russell, R. (2016, July 04, 02:56 pm). Fractals Lesson Plan
     Retrieved October 21, 2018, from
     http://www.rupert.id.au/fractals/lesson\what-are-fractals.php

Last refreshed: October 21 2018. 12:58.40 am

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.