Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A geometric pattern that is repeated at ever smaller scales to produce irregular shapes and surfaces that cannot be represented by classical geometry. Fractals are used especially in computer modeling of irregular patterns and structures in nature.
Wiktionary
- n. mathematics (Can we verify(+) this sense?) A geometric figure that repeats itself under several levels of magnification, and that shows self-similarity on all scales.
- n. mathematics (Can we verify(+) this sense?) A geometric figure that appears irregular at all scales of length, e.g. a fern.
- adj. mathematics Having the form of fractal.
WordNet 3.0
- n. (mathematics) a geometric pattern that is repeated at every scale and so cannot be represented by classical geometry
Etymologies
- From French fractal, from Latin fractus ("broken"), perfect passive participle of frangō ("break, fragment"). (Wiktionary)
- French, from Latin frāctus, past participle of frangere, to break; see fraction. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Benoît Mandelbrot was that IBM employee who successfully measured the coastline of England in 1967, coined the term fractal in 1975 and opened new worlds in mathematics and now, I believe, human emotional understanding.”
Fractal Geometry, Human Emotion and Social Marketing - Tom Troja - MediaBizBloggers
“Ancient Celts believed in a giant man, the Greeks observed some basic shapes, the word "fractal" was coined in the Seventies.”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
“A fractal is a geometric shape with a pattern that repeats itself at different scales of magnitude.”
“As such, I was not aware of the startling developments in fractal-firework technology.”
“Storm goes to Egypt to help out on old friend, taking Jubilee, and getting involved in fractal magic.”
““Trees and ferns often grow in fractal forms,” this website tells us.”
“I tried observing my wife an plotting the results: If I were more versed in fractal geometry, I might say it was some kind Mandelbrot, but as it stands, it just seems to be a scatter graph of pure chaos.”
“On the plus side is an interesting plot - experts in fractal geometry are being killed off at an alarming rate and our hero Pepper Keane is investigating - which gives him, and therefore the reader, the opportunity to learn about fractal geometry ...”
The Fractal Murders: Summary and book reviews of The Fractal Murders by Mark Cohen.
“Each of these levels, each of these self-unified fragments, is in fractal terms called an "iteration.”
“A fractal is an "infinite line in a finite space" (139), and Gleick says that the fractal patterns occurring along this infinite line are "dynamical processes jelled into physical forms”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘fractal’.
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SCIE - mathematics
The most frequent words in the titles of mathematical books and journals (www.sciencedirect.com)
nonparametric, nonparametric sta..., multivariate anal..., partial different..., multivariate, topology, stochastic, differential equa..., linear algebra, harmonic analysis, applied mathematics, combinatorial and 205 more...
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SCIE - statistics
a priori probability, Abbe-Helmert crit..., absolute error, absolutely unbias..., accuracy, ACF, affinity, AIC, algorithm, allometry, alphabet, anomic and 4171 more...
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SCIE - graph theory
antiparallel, convex polyhedron, nonadjacent, acyclic, isomorphic, vertex, graph, planar, homomorphism, factorization, adjacency, disjoint and 423 more...
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position (dynamic)
( descriptive )
more:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/static
even more:
charismatic, lively, animated, shifting, permeate, wobble, shimmer, sparkle, flex, pizzazz, chaos, fractal and 42 more... -
September Words-11849
During the month of September, post at least 10 new words to this list. Make sure you cite where you read the word (book/author/pg) and quote the context/sentence where you found it. If someone has...
psilocybin, raca, schema, myriad, copacetic, chastise, fractal, tourniquet, turncoat, vicarious, surreptitiously, clandestine and 34 more...
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thing
apron, lard, clove, camphor, alfalfa, amber, caraway, juniper, kohl, lute, shale, glyph and 142 more...
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Browning words of cotton - often stic...
words that meander or have a partial dimension:
words that "catch on": peano curves: fractalitescotton, clue, filament, filaria, filum, filovirus, clod, cloud, peano curve, alveoli, nuance, noil and 122 more...
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maygra
apropos, advantageous, perception, discombobulated, adumbrate, apogee, perihelion, mortmain, solitudinous, mediastinus, asumbrative, traveler and 498 more...
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chefjulianin's Words
high, ice, recipe, bear, bare, lady, food, identity, sudden, spooky, away, cook and 142 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Cessilind's Words
dvorak, ingenuity, cessation, oblique, transverse, anvilicious, evoke, verisimilitude, integrity, strega, recumbent, depression and 164 more...
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jagosaurus's favorites
Words I like mostly because of the way they sound and feel.
ticonderoga, petulance, snark, estimable, chickahominy, feline, gezellig, gneiss, shit, willy-nilly, shelter, coda and 366 more...
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colleen's words ii
sibilant, sundry, spindle, distaff, device, mortar, pestle, scythe, flail, thresh, frown, elementary and 495 more...
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Novel Words
Concise words to sprinkle in my prose.
apropos, perception, discombobulated, adumbrate, apogee, antinomy, sanguine, glyph, taciturn, aesthetic, truncate, coffee and 143 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (F)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
faery, fairy cross, fairy ring, falcon, fare-thee-well, farewell-summer, farthing, faun, fawn, felicitous, felicity, fencing and 109 more...
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Faintheart's Words
onomatopoeia, no, terrafactive, word, faint, heart, joy, quixotic, karla, half, amp, tardis and 181 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for fractal.
JTroyer "From above it's fractal." The Shack by WM Paul. Sep 29, 2010
susanmarieanderson i love you site! i just read about it in last week's nyt mag section, am a writer, will use wordnik constantly, what a service! thank you, susan anderson (author of JOURNEY FROM ABANDONMENT TO HEALING) Dec 25, 2009
bilby "We could more easily re-invent public schools by volunteering our time to them directly, instead of sending our kids to private schools while we sign petitions for government to re-prioritize. And even in health care, we’d end up cutting everyone’s costs by commuting less, smoking less, landscaping less, and, yes, hating less. For each of these actions triggers different responses, undermines industries, requires new legal structures, and so on. It’s tiny, but it’s almost fractal in its impact."
- Douglas Rushkoff, An End to Movements, arthurmag.com, 15 Aug 2009.
Sep 27, 2009