Fractals

I'm not sure at all how we transitioned into the topic of fractals today in my Business Entitites class, but we did.

In colloquial usage, a fractal is a shape that is recursively constructed or self-similar, that is, a shape that appears similar at all scales of magnification and is therefore often referred to as "infinitely complex."

Alas, upon reading the Wikipedia entry, I was reminded of those dreaded days of Geometry way back in high school, most of which I slept through! Nonetheless, here is what I picked-up: a very cool graphic! The explanation behind it aside, all I have to say is "oooooo, coooool!"

The surface of a mountain can be modeled on a computer by using a fractal: Start with a triangle in 3D space and connect the central points of each side by line segments, resulting in 4 triangles. The central points are then randomly moved up or down, within a defined range. The procedure is repeated, decreasing at each iteration the range by half. The recursive nature of the algorithm guarantees that the whole is statistically similar to each detail.