fractal

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments (1)  · 
“
An appropriate image might be a kind of fractal or a video clip of an animated fractal where we see a pattern emerge: we see little bits and then zone out -- or in -- and see the pattern again and again.

View all »
Definitions (2)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. noun 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.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • In a fractal, the same patterns are reflected on the microscopic and macroscopic levels. —  F ;SF; - vol 086 issue 02 - February 1994
  • He could only sense the outlines of something at once as simple and complex as a fractal, as ornate as a baroque cathedral Dawn light filtered onto the forest floor. —  Analog, July/August 2003
  • We are no closer here to the center of the Fever, that blank spot on Addison's maps, than where I landed, but the border between consensus reality and Hippolyta's causal anomaly (what Lieutenant Addison—inaccurately—called the "probability boundary") is fluid, fractal, and it has timelike components. —  Gardner Dozois - The Year's Best Science Fiction 23rd Annual Collection (2006)
  • He describes a process "like a fractal problem … opening up a cascade of questions." —  MIT World: Recent Updates
  • One of the wild, wacky, fractal-like basket stars. —  Oregon Coast Travel, Tourism, Science, Entertainment News - Breaking News from the Oregon Coast
More examples »
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Words tagged fractal

Stats

This word has been looked up 268 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (1)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. French, from Latin frāctus, past participle of frangere, to break; see fraction.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about once a month.

Recently looked up

church · stiff · pilot-boat · kneading · qq

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

qualms · poofter · oh for heaven's sake · embodies · silence