Fractal Nature (Revised 2004-05-25)
Fractal: a geometric pattern
repeated at every scale.
Observe the Earth,
the rising and falling of its surface.
Meditate on the mountain ranges,
the wide plains,
and deep valleys.
Focus in on a single mountain range,
and the rising and falling of peak and valley,
hill and dale.
Zoom in on a single mountain.
See the geometry of crag and cleft,
crest and cliff.
Scale down to a single peak;
and the pattern,
of jagged rocks and broken boulders.
Look at a lone boulder,
where the prominences and fissures
repeat the pattern.
Follow the pattern inward,
down to microscopic peaks and valleys,
continuing until it finally vanishes
in individual atoms.
Fractal: a geometric pattern
repeated
at every scale.
Observe the Earth.
Consider the coastlines
containing the continents.
Regard the lines, angles, and curves
surrounding the land.
Concentrate on one continent
with its curving gulfs and linear peninsulas,
broad bays and crenelated capes.
Direct your gaze
to a single great gulf
and it's pattern of
bays and coves, deltas and sounds.
Along the shore
of a single inlet
trace the pattern ever smaller
until it vanishes
in individual grains of sand.
Fractal: a geometric
pattern repeated
at every
scale.
Take a tree
on some coast.
Behold the branching geometry
as the trunk
splits into large limbs.
Those limbs themselves
divide into smaller branches,
repeating as the branches split
into smaller branches and then twigs.
Continue from a twig into a leaf.
Follow the veins,
dividing ever smaller
until the pattern vanishes
in single cells.
Fractal Nature:
many geometric
patterns
repeated
at multiple scales.