Michael Rose does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...

Humans are visual creatures. Objects we call “beautiful” or “aesthetic” are a crucial part of our humanity. Even the oldest known examples of rock and cave art served aesthetic rather than utilitarian ...

As Sigmund Freud made very clear, human beings are compelled to repeat patterns—the repetition compulsion. Patterns laid down early in life are propelled forward to recreate the familiar that can be ...

Fractals, shapes comprised of self-similar parts, are not merely prescribed linear structures. A wide class of fractals can also arise from the rich dynamics inherent to nonlinear optics. Although ...

You may not be able to define “fractal” — yet — but fractals are, in fact, everywhere. As you might expect from hearing her title, Hayley Brazier, Donald M. Kerr curator of natural history at the High ...

Kim Tingley is a regular contributor to OnEarth magazine, published by the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the New York Times Magazine. This article was originally published by OnEarth magazine ...

Fractal geometry is a field of math born in the 1970s and mainly developed by Benoit Mandelbrot. If you’ve already heard of fractals, you’ve probably seen the picture above. It’s called the Mandelbrot ...

Fifty years ago, “fractal” was born. In a 1975 book, the Polish-French-American mathematician Benoit B. Mandelbrot coined the term to describe a family of rough, fragmented shapes that fall outside ...

Introduction Do you ever wonder what mathematicians study—and why? Most of what they do is complex and difficult to understand, but fractal art might give us a glimpse. Mathematicians study fractals, ...

Richard Taylor receives funding from The Australian Research Council, The Research Council for Science Advancement, and The WM Keck Foundation. Humans are visual creatures. Objects we call “beautiful” ...