This is an example of a fractal we have created on a program. IT IS BIIIIIIG!!!!???

          Fractals are created by recurring geometric shapes. Creating an infinite amount of shapes. And though they weren't created until the invention of the computer they existed in theory.

          Gaston Julia (1893-1978) was a French mathematician. He drew with his hands because the computer was not created. These sets of fractions are now called “Julia sets”. In 1917 Gaston Julia made the first Julia set in a hospital recovering from an injury in world war 1. Much of the initial work was done by him and Pierre Fantou.

           Another fractal engineer was Waclaw Sierpinski. His work came before Mandelbrot. Waclaw was known for the Sierpinski triangle, and also known as the Sierpinski gasket. The Sierpinski triangle is made up of a bunch of smaller triangles that look similar under any level of magnification. He lived from 1982-1969.

           Mandelbrot was born in Warsaw in 1924 and moved to France when he was 11 years old. He looked at Julia's functions and created a simpler solution to all Julia's functions. This set: is named after him, the Mandelbrot set.

           Now that we have talked about some people that invented fractals let's talk about how they work. In normal pictures when you zoom in, the picture will become bigger and blurred. In a fractal instead of zooming in the computer will redraw the picture. Fractals will allow you to zoom in an unlimited amount of times. In currant times, computers can draw fractals in matter of minutes. But before computers were invented it would take brilliant mathematicians years to create a single fractal by hand.

           Scientists and mathematicians believe that fractals can predict the weather with the proper equation. However, finding this equation is close to impossible. There are others who say that the weather never can actually be predicted. These people believe that “total randomness is possible.” (                                                    http://library.Thinkquest.org/3288/chaos.html)

All of these facts make up only a small part of the amazing history of fractals.

http://www.fractovia.org/art/people/julia.html

http://math.youngzones.org/Fractal%20webpages/history_fractals.html