Curves And Fractal Dimension

Written for mathematicians, engineers, and researchers in experimental science, as well as anyone interested in fractals, this book explains the geometrical and analytical properties of trajectories, aggregate contours, geographical coastlines, profiles of rough surfaces, and other curves of finite and fractal length. The approach is by way of precise definitions from which properties are deduced and applications and computational methods are derived. Written without the traditional heavy symbolism of mathematics texts, this book requires two years of calculus while also containing material appropriate for graduate coursework in curve analysis and/or fractal dimension.

This book explains a taxonomy of plane-filling curves (fractal curves with a fractal dimension of 2). it includes the classic fractal curves described in Mandelbrot's original book. Many new fractal curves are introduced. The taxonomy is based upon the Gaussian integers and the Eisenstein integers - each forming a lattice (square and triangular). These lattices have algebraic properties, which allows number theory to be used in describing and classifying these curves. This work has been under development for over 30 years. An earlier version of this taxonomy is described in the book ""Brain-filling Curves"", also by Jeffrey Ventrella. More on plane-filling curves can be found at fractalcurves.com

Galileo Unbound traces the journey that brought us from Galileo's law of free fall to today's geneticists measuring evolutionary drift, entangled quantum particles moving among many worlds, and our lives as trajectories traversing a health space with thousands of dimensions. Remarkably, common themes persist that predict the evolution of species as readily as the orbits of planets or the collapse of stars into black holes. This book tells the history of spaces of expanding dimension and increasing abstraction and how they continue today to give new insight into the physics of complex systems. Galileo published the first modern law of motion, the Law of Fall, that was ideal and simple, laying the foundation upon which Newton built the first theory of dynamics. Early in the twentieth century, geometry became the cause of motion rather than the result when Einstein envisioned the fabric of space-time warped by mass and energy, forcing light rays to bend past the Sun. Possibly more radical was Feynman's dilemma of quantum particles taking all paths at once — setting the stage for the modern fields of quantum field theory and quantum computing. Yet as concepts of motion have evolved, one thing has remained constant, the need to track ever more complex changes and to capture their essence, to find patterns in the chaos as we try to predict and control our world.

Most books on fractals focus on deterministic fractals as the impact of incorporating randomness and time is almost absent. Further, most review fractals without explaining what scaling and self-similarity means. This book introduces the idea of scaling, self-similarity, scale-invariance and their role in the dimensional analysis. For the first time, fractals emphasizing mostly on stochastic fractal, and multifractals which evolves with time instead of scale-free self-similarity, are discussed. Moreover, it looks at power laws and dynamic scaling laws in some detail and provides an overview of modern statistical tools for calculating fractal dimension and multifractal spectrum.

The Beauty of Fractals includes six essays related to fractals, with perspectives different enough to give you a taste of the breadth of the subject. Each essay is self-contained and expository. Moreover, each of the essays is intended to be accessible to a broad audience that includes college teachers, high school teachers, advanced undergraduate students, and others who wish to learn or teach about topics in fractals that are not regularly in textbooks on fractals.

This book is based on notes for the course Fractals:lntroduction, Basics and Perspectives given by MichaelF. Barnsley, RobertL. Devaney, Heinz-Otto Peit gen, Dietmar Saupe and Richard F. Voss. The course was chaired by Heinz-Otto Peitgen and was part of the SIGGRAPH '87 (Anaheim, California) course pro gram. Though the five chapters of this book have emerged from those courses we have tried to make this book a coherent and uniformly styled presentation as much as possible. It is the first book which discusses fractals solely from the point of view of computer graphics. Though fundamental concepts and algo rithms are not introduced and discussed in mathematical rigor we have made a serious attempt to justify and motivate wherever it appeared to be desirable. Ba sic algorithms are typically presented in pseudo-code or a description so close to code that a reader who is familiar with elementary computer graphics should find no problem to get started. Mandelbrot's fractal geometry provides both a description and a mathemat ical model for many of the seemingly complex forms and patterns in nature and the sciences. Fractals have blossomed enormously in the past few years and have helped reconnect pure mathematics research with both natural sciences and computing. Computer graphics has played an essential role both in its de velopment and rapidly growing popularity. Conversely, fractal geometry now plays an important role in the rendering, modelling and animation of natural phenomena and fantastic shapes in computer graphics.

Fractal analysis has rapidly become an important field in materials science and engineering with broad applications to theoretical analysis and quantitative description of microstructures of materials. Fractal methods have thus far shown great potential in engineering applications in quantitative microscopic analysis of materials using commercial microscopes. This book attempts to introduce the fundamentals and the basis methods of fractal description of microstructures in combination with digital imaging and computer technologies. Basic concepts are given in the form of mathematical expressions. Detailed algorithms in practical applications are also provided. Fractal measurement, error analysis and fractal description of cluster growth, thin films and surfaces are emphasized in this book. Image-Based Fractal Description of Microstructures provides a comprehensive approach to materials characterization by fractal from theory to application.

Fractal geometry, based on recursive mathematical schemas, provides a means for modeling a great number of natural phenomena. For this reason, it is of increasing interest to physicists, chemists, biologists, and geographers, among others. A major quality of fractality is that it not only unifies phenomena previously thought to be anomalous or disparate in a single theoretical framework, but it also promotes a return to graphical treatment, which had been almost completely banished from scientific thought in favor of analysis. This book casts a new, lively light on scientific territories still not fully explored. It is designed for research workers, engineers, and experimentalists faced with problems of measure and action in heterogenous materials and environments. Several color plates illustrate the implications and consequences of this theory for most of the questions raised by the taking into consideration of time in a fractal space.

* A lovingly-crafted visual expedition, lead by a lifelong fractal wizard with an obsession for categorizing fractal species * Hundreds of beautiful color images * An in-depth taxonomy of Koch-constructed Fractal Curves * An intuitive introduction to Koch construction * A must-read for anyone interested in fractal geometry