•
coastlines • tornadoes • broccoli • the stock market •
desert landscape•.
Next time you are outside, look at a
tree. Look at its branches and leaves. To chaologists,
the tree, its branches, and its leaves are identical. A chaologist is
a person that is a professional on the study of chaos. The tree is an
example of a fractal in nature. Some other examples are: •
cauliflower • lightning • seashells • roots • lungs •
coastlines • tornadoes • broccoli • the stock market •
desert landscape•.
Some people can argue that everything on Earth
is a fractal. Weather is a favorite example for a 
lot of people.
Forecasts are not always right. This is because problems in airflow
and solar heating can pop up anywhere. Every problem might be small,
but the change will go up in time.
Nature is full of shapes that still look like
themselves on different levels. For example, a stone looks like the
boulder that it was once attached to. The pattern of a twig looks
similar to the tree that it has fallen from. These are all examples
of fractals in nature. Fractals are almost impossible to create
without the help of computers. 
Benoit Mandelbrot once said:
“Clouds are not spheres,
Mountains are not cones,
Coastlines are not circles,
And bark is not smooth.
Nor does lightning travel in a straight line.”
An
example of a fractal inspired by nature is the Koch snowflake. 
It is
a mathematical curve and one of the earliest fractals. It was created
by starting with a line segment and altering each line like this:
• Divide line segment into three segments of equal length.
• Draw an equilateral triangle that has the middle segment from step 1 as its base and points outward.
• Remove the line segment that is the base of the triangle from step 2.
We give credit to Wikipedia.
Every fractal in nature is unique in its own
way. There are fractals all around us. Even in your kitchen when you
eat broccoli. Scary. 
Just remember the next time you look at a tree,
mountain, or snowflake that they are all fractals!
LINKS
www.emayzine.com/infoage/math/math4.htm
(p.s.: Two of the pictures are links =]!!)