To see a World in a grain of sand, And Heaven in a wild flower

the space elevator

Nearly exact self-similar fractal forms occur do in nature, but I’d never seen such a beautiful and perfect example until, some time after moving to Switzerland, I came across a chou Romanesco like the one above in a grocery store. This is so visually stunning an object that on first encounter it’s hard to imagine you’re looking at a garden vegetable rather than an alien artefact created with molecular nanotechnology. But of course, then you realise that vegetables are created with molecular nanotechnology, albeit the product of earthly evolution, not extraterrestrial engineering.

John Walker, at Fourmilab

I was struck by the beauty of this plant. When I was a kid fractals were unknown. Now thanks primarily to the work of Benoit Mandelbrot, we see them everywhere.

I had not been to the Fourmilab site in years, but am happy to see that it is still there, and still full of wonders. Hat tip to Boing Boing.

Posted on October 17th, 2005 by pwyll
Filed under: General

2 Responses to “To see a World in a grain of sand, And Heaven in a wild flower”

  1. J.K.Dooley, on October 31st, 2005 at 2:57 pm Said:

    I thought it was more like Fibbonacchi numbers than fractals, but one begat the other, right? What the phe. ‘Ahts a matta for me, eh?”

  2. pwyll, on November 2nd, 2005 at 8:01 pm Said:

    The self-simlarity (the fractal thing) is a different matter, but some of those spirals are saying Fibonacci to me. Good eye.

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