Category Archives: Fractals

Agnathous Analysis

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In Mandibular Metamorphosis, I looked at two distinct fractals and how you could turn one into the other in one smooth sweep. The Sierpiński triangle was one of the fractals:

Sierpiński triangle

The T-square fractal was the other:

T-square fractal (or part thereof)

And here they are turning into each other:

Sierpiński ↔ T-square (anim)
(Open in new window if distorted)

But what exactly is going on? To answer that, you need to see how the two fractals are created. Here are the stages for one way of constructing the Sierpiński triangle:

Sierpiński triangle #1

Sierpiński triangle #2

Sierpiński triangle #3

Sierpiński triangle #4

Sierpiński triangle #5

Sierpiński triangle #6

Sierpiński triangle #7

Sierpiński triangle #8

Sierpiński triangle #9

Constructing a Sierpiński triangle (anim)

When you take away all the construction lines, you’re left with a simple Sierpiński triangle:

Now here’s the construction of a T-square fractal:

T-square fractal #1

T-square fractal #2

T-square fractal #3

T-square fractal #4

T-square fractal #5

T-square fractal #6

T-square fractal #7

T-square fractal #8

T-square fractal #9

Constructing a T-square fractal (anim)

Take away the construction lines and you’re left with a simple T-square fractal:

T-square fractal

And now it’s easy to see how one turns into the other:

Sierpiński → T-square #1

Sierpiński → T-square #2

Sierpiński → T-square #3

Sierpiński → T-square #4

Sierpiński → T-square #5

Sierpiński → T-square #6

Sierpiński → T-square #7

Sierpiński → T-square #8

Sierpiński → T-square #9

Sierpiński → T-square #10

Sierpiński → T-square #11

Sierpiński → T-square #12

Sierpiński → T-square #13

Sierpiński ↔ T-square (anim)
(Open in new window if distorted)

Post-Performative Post-Scriptum

Mandibular Metamorphosis also looked at a third fractal, the mandibles or jaws fractal. Because I haven’t included the jaws fractal in this analysis, the analysis is therefore agnathous, from Ancient Greek ἀ-, a-, “without”, + γνάθ-, gnath-, “jaw”.

Mandibular Metamorphosis

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Here’s the famous Sierpiński triangle:

Sierpiński triangle

And here’s the less famous T-square fractal:

T-square fractal (or part of it, at least)

How do you get from one to the other? Very easily, as it happens:

From Sierpiński triangle to T-square (and back again) (animated)
(Open in new window if distorted)

Now, here are the Sierpiński triangle, the T-square fractal and what I call the mandibles or jaws fractal:

Sierpiński triangle

T-square fractal

Mandibles / Jaws fractal

How do you cycle between them? Again, very easily:

From Sierpiński triangle to T-square to Mandibles (and back again) (animated)
(Open in new window if distorted)

Controlled Chaos

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The chaos game is a simple mathematical technique for creating fractals. Suppose a point jumps over and over again 1/2 of the distance towards a randomly chosen vertex of a triangle. This shape appears, the so-called Sierpiński triangle:

Sierpiński triangle created by the chaos game

But the jumps don’t have to be random: you can use an array to find every possible combination of jumps and so create a more even image. I call this controlled chaos. However, if you try the chaos game (controlled or otherwise) with a square, no fractal appears unless you restrict the vertex chosen in some way. For example, if the point can’t jump towards the same vertex twice or more in a row, this fractal appears:

Ban on jumping towards previously chosen vertex, i.e. v + 0

And if the point can’t jump towards the vertex one place clockwise of the previously chosen vertex, this fractal appears:

Ban on v + 1

If the point can’t jump towards the vertex two places clockwise of the previously chosen vertex, this fractal appears:

Ban on v + 2

If the point can’t jump towards the vertex three places clockwise, or one place anticlockwise, of the previously chosen vertex, this fractal appears (compare v + 1 above):

Ban on v + 3

You can also ban vertices based on how close the point is to them at any given moment. Suppose that the point can’t jump towards the nearest vertex, which means that it must choose to jump towards either the 2nd-nearest, 3rd-nearest or 4th-nearest vertex. A fractal we’ve already seen appears:

Must jump towards vertex at distance 2, 3 or 4

In effect, not jumping towards the nearest vertex means not jumping towards a vertex twice or more in a row. Another familiar fractal appears if the point can’t jump towards the most distant vertex:

d = 1,2,3

But new fractals also appear when the jumps are determined by distance:

d = 1,2,4

d = 1,3,4

And you can add more targets for the jumping point midway between the vertices of the square:

d = 1,2,8

d = 1,4,6

d = 1,6,8

d = 1,7,8

d = 2,3,6

d = 2,3,8

d = 2,4,8

d = 2,5,6

And what if you choose the next vertex by incrementing the previously chosen vertex? Suppose the initial vertex is 1 and the possible increments are 1, 2 and 2. This new fractal appears:

increment = 1,2,2 (for example, 1 + 1 = 2, 2 + 2 = 4, 4 + 2 = 6, and 6 is adjusted thus: 6 – 4 = 2)

And with this set of increments, it’s déjà vu all over again:

i = 2,2,3

And again:

i = 2,3,2

With more possible increments, familiar fractals appear in unfamiliar ways:

i = 1,3,2,3

i = 1,3,3,2

i = 1,4,3,3

i = 2,1,2,2

i = 2,1,3,4

i = 2,2,3,4

i = 3,1,1,2

Now try increments with midpoints on the sides:

v = 4 + midpoints, i = 1,2,4

As we saw above, this incremental fractal can also be created from a square with four vertices and no midpoints:

i = 1,3,3; initial vertex = 1

But the fractal changes when the initial vertex is set to 2, i.e. to one of the midpoints:

i = 1,3,3; initial vertex = 2

And here are more inc-fractals with midpoints:

i = 1,4,2 (cf. inc-fractal 1,2,4 above)

i = 1,4,8

i = 2,6,3

i = 3,2,6

<hr

i = 4,7,8

i = 1,2,3,5

i = 1,4,5,4

i = 6,2,4,1

i = 7,6,2,2

i = 7,8,2,4

i = 7,8,4,2

Allus Pour, Horic

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*As a rotating animated gif (optimized at ezGIF).

Performativizing Paronomasticity

The title of this incendiary intervention, which is perhaps my most contrived title yet, is a paronomasia on Shakespeare’s “Alas, poor Yorick!” (Hamlet, Act 5, scene 1). “Allus” is a northern form of “always”, “pour” has its standard meaning, and “Horic” is from the Greek ὡρῐκός, hōrikos, which strictly speaking means “in one’s prime, blooming”. However, it could also be interpreted as meaning “hourly”. So the paronomasia means “Always pour, O Hourly One!” (i.e. hourglass).

A Seed Indeed

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Like plants, fractals grow from seeds. But plants start with a small seed that gets bigger. Fractals start with a big seed that gets smaller. For example, perhaps the most famous fractal of all is the Koch snowflake. The seed of the Koch snowflake is step #2 here:

Stages of the Koch snowflake (from Fractals and the coast of Great Britain)

To create the Koch snowflake, you replace each straight line in the initial triangle with the seed:

Creating the Koch snowflake (from Wikipedia)

Animated Koch snowflake (from Wikipedia)

Now here’s another seed for another fractal:

Fractal stage #1

The seed is like a capital “I”, consisting of a line of length l sitting between two lines of length l/2 at right angles. The rule this time is: Replace the center of the longer line and the two shorter lines with ½-sized versions of the seed:

Fractal stage #2

Try and guess what the final fractal looks like when this rule is applied again and again:

Fractal stage #3

Fractal stage #4

Fractal stage #5

Fractal stage #6

Fractal stage #7

Fractal stage #8

Fractal stage #9

Fractal stage #10

I call this fractal the hourglass. And there are a lot of ways to create it. Here’s an animated version of the way shown in this post:

Hourglass fractal (animated)

Hour Re-Re-Powered

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In “Hour Power” I looked at my favorite fractal, the hourglass fractal:

The hourglass fractal

I showed three ways to create the fractal. Next, in “Hour Re-Powered”, I showed a fourth way. Now here’s a fifth (previously shown in “Tri Again”).

This is a rep-4 isosceles right triangle:

Rep-4 isosceles right triangle

If you divide and discard one of the four sub-triangles, then adjust one of the three remaining sub-triangles, then keep on dividing-and-discarding (and adjusting), you can create a certain fractal — the hourglass fractal:

Triangle to hourglass #1

Triangle to hourglass #2

Triangle to hourglass #3

Triangle to hourglass #4

Triangle to hourglass #5

Triangle to hourglass #6

Triangle to hourglass #7

Triangle to hourglass #8

Triangle to hourglass #9

Triangle to hourglass #10

Triangle to hourglass (anim) (open in new tab to see full-sized version)

And here is a zoomed version:

Triangle to hourglass (large)

Triangle to hourglass (large) (anim)

Hour Re-Powered

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Pre-previously on Overlord in terms of the Über-Feral, I looked at my favorite member of the fractal community, the Hourglass Fractal:

The hourglass fractal

A real hourglass for comparison

As I described how I discovered the hourglass fractal indirectly and by accident, then showed how to create it directly, using two isosceles triangles set apex-to-apex in the form of an hourglass:

Triangles to hourglass #1

Triangles to hourglass #2

Triangles to hourglass #3

Triangles to hourglass #4

Triangles to hourglass #5

Triangles to hourglass #6

↓

[…]

↓

Triangles to hourglass #10

Triangles to hourglass #11

Triangles to hourglass #12

Triangles to hourglass (animated)

Now, here’s an even simpler way to create the hourglass fractal, starting with a single vertical line:

Line to hourglass #1

Line to hourglass #2

Line to hourglass #3

Line to hourglass #4

Line to hourglass #5

Line to hourglass #6

Line to hourglass #7

Line to hourglass #8

Line to hourglass #9

Line to hourglass #10

Line to hourglass #11

Line to hourglass (animated)

Hour Power

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Would it be my favorite fractal if I hadn’t discovered it for myself? It might be, because I think it combines great simplicity with great beauty. I first came across it when I was looking at this rep-tile, that is, a shape that can be divided into smaller copies of itself:

Rep-4 L-Tromino

It’s called a L-tromino and is a rep-4 rep-tile, because it can be divided into four copies of itself. If you divide the L-tromino into four sub-copies and discard one particular sub-copy, then repeat again and again, you’ll get this fractal:

Tromino fractal #1

Tromino fractal #2

Tromino fractal #3

Tromino fractal #4

Tromino fractal #5

Tromino fractal #6

Tromino fractal #7

Tromino fractal #8

Tromino fractal #9

Tromino fractal #10

Tromino fractal #11

Hourglass fractal (animated)

I call it an hourglass fractal, because it reminds me of an hourglass:

A real hourglass

The hourglass fractal for comparison

I next came across the hourglass fractal when applying the same divide-and-discard process to a rep-4 square. The first fractal that appears is the Sierpiński triangle:

Square to Sierpiński triangle #1

Square to Sierpiński triangle #2

Square to Sierpiński triangle #3

[…]

Square to Sierpiński triangle #10

Square to Sierpiński triangle (animated)

However, you can rotate the sub-squares in various ways to create new fractals. Et voilà, the hourglass fractal appears again:

Square to hourglass #1

Square to hourglass #2

Square to hourglass #3

Square to hourglass #4

Square to hourglass #5

Square to hourglass #6

Square to hourglass #7

Square to hourglass #8

Square to hourglass #9

Square to hourglass #10

Square to hourglass #11

Square to hourglass (animated)

Finally, I was looking at variants of the so-called chaos game. In the standard chaos game, a point jumps half-way towards the randomly chosen vertices of a square or other polygon. In this variant of the game, I’ve added jump-towards-able mid-points to the sides of the square and restricted the point’s jumps: it can only jump towards the points that are first-nearest, seventh-nearest and eighth-nearest. And again the hourglass fractal appears:

Chaos game to hourglass #1

Chaos game to hourglass #2

Chaos game to hourglass #3

Chaos game to hourglass #4

Chaos game to hourglass #5

Chaos game to hourglass #6

Chaos game to hourglass (animated)

But what if you want to create the hourglass fractal directly? You can do it like this, using two isosceles triangles set apex-to-apex in the form of an hourglass:

Triangles to hourglass #1

Triangles to hourglass #2

Triangles to hourglass #3

Triangles to hourglass #4

Triangles to hourglass #5

Triangles to hourglass #6

Triangles to hourglass #7

Triangles to hourglass #8

Triangles to hourglass #9

Triangles to hourglass #10

Triangles to hourglass #11

Triangles to hourglass #12

Triangles to hourglass (animated)

Square Routes Re-Re-Re-Re-Re-Revisited

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For a good example of how more can be less, try the chaos game. You trace a point jumping repeatedly 1/n of the way towards a randomly chosen vertex of a regular polygon. When the polygon is a triangle and 1/n = 1/2, this is what happens:

Chaos triangle #1

Chaos triangle #2

Chaos triangle #3

Chaos triangle #4

Chaos triangle #5

Chaos triangle #6

Chaos triangle #7

As you can see, this simple chaos game creates a fractal known as the Sierpiński triangle (or Sierpiński sieve). Now try more and discover that it’s less. When you play the chaos game with a square, this is what happens:

Chaos square #1

Chaos square #2

Chaos square #3

Chaos square #4

Chaos square #5

Chaos square #6

Chaos square #7

As you can see, more is less: the interior of the square simply fills with points and no attractive fractal appears. And because that was more is less, let’s see how less is more. What happens if you restrict the way in which the point inside the square can jump? Suppose it can’t jump twice towards the same vertex (i.e., the vertex v+0 is banned). This fractal appears:

Ban on choosing vertex [v+0]

And if the point can’t jump towards the vertex one place anti-clockwise of the currently chosen vertex, this fractal appears:

Ban on vertex [v+1] (or [v-1], depending on how you number the vertices)

And if the point can’t jump towards two places clockwise or anti-clockwise of the currently chosen vertex, this fractal appears:

Ban on vertex [v+2], i.e. the diagonally opposite vertex

At least, that is one possible route to those three particular fractals. You see another route, start with this simple fractal, where dividing and discarding parts of a square creates a Sierpiński triangle:

Square to Sierpiński triangle #1

Square to Sierpiński triangle #2

Square to Sierpiński triangle #3

Square to Sierpiński triangle #4

[…]

Square to Sierpiński triangle #10

Square to Sierpiński triangle (animated)

By taking four of these square-to-Sierpiński-triangle fractals and rotating them in the right way, you can re-create the three chaos-game fractals shown above. Here’s the [v+0]-ban fractal:

[v+0]-ban fractal #1

[v+0]-ban #2

[v+0]-ban #3

[v+0]-ban #4

[v+0]-ban #5

[v+0]-ban #6

[v+0]-ban #7

[v+0]-ban #8

[v+0]-ban #9

[v+0]-ban (animated)

And here’s the [v+1]-ban fractal:

[v+1]-ban fractal #1

[v+1]-ban #2

[v+1]-ban #3

[v+1]-ban #4

[v+1]-ban #5

[v+1]-ban #6

[v+1]-ban #7

[v+1]-ban #8

[v+1]-ban #9

[v+1]-ban (animated)

And here’s the [v+2]-ban fractal:

[v+2]-ban fractal #1

[v+2]-ban #2

[v+2]-ban #3

[v+2]-ban #4

[v+2]-ban #5

[v+2]-ban #6

[v+2]-ban #7

[v+2]-ban #8

[v+2]-ban #9

[v+2]-ban (animated)

And taking a different route means that you can find more fractals — as I will demonstrate.

Previously pre-posted (please peruse):

• Square Routes
• Square Routes Revisited
• Square Routes Re-Revisited
• Square Routes Re-Re-Revisited
• Square Routes Re-Re-Re-Revisited
• Square Routes Re-Re-Re-Re-Revisited

Koch Rock

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The Koch snowflake, named after the Swedish mathematician Helge von Koch, is a famous fractal that encloses a finite area within an infinitely long boundary. To make a ’flake, you start with an equilateral triangle:

Koch snowflake stage #1 (with room for manœuvre)

Next, you divide each side in three and erect a smaller equilateral triangle on the middle third, like this:

Koch snowflake #2

Each original straight side of the triangle is now 1/3 longer, so the full perimeter has also increased by 1/3. In other words, perimeter = perimeter * 1⅓. If the perimeter of the equilateral triangle was 3, the perimeter of the nascent Koch snowflake is 4 = 3 * 1⅓. The area of the original triangle also increases by 1/3, because each new equalitarian triangle is 1/9 the size of the original and there are three of them: 1/9 * 3 = 1/3.

Now here’s stage 3 of the snowflake:

Koch snowflake #3, perimeter = 4 * 1⅓ = 5⅓

Again, each straight line on the perimeter has been divided in three and capped with a smaller equilateral triangle. This increases the length of each line by 1/3 and so increases the full perimeter by a third. 4 * 1⅓ = 5⅓. However, the area does not increase by 1/3. There are twelve straight lines in the new perimeter, so twelve new equilateral triangles are erected. However, because their sides are 1/9 as long as the original side of the triangle, they have 1/(9^2) = 1/81 the area of the original triangle. 1/81 * 12 = 4/27 = 0.148…

Koch snowflake #4, perimeter = 7.11

Koch snowflake #5, p = 9.48

Koch snowflake #6, p = 12.64

Koch snowflake #7, p = 16.85

Koch snowflake (animated)

The perimeter of the triangle increases by 1⅓ each time, while the area reaches a fixed limit. And that’s how the Koch snowflake contains a finite area within an infinite boundary. But the Koch snowflake isn’t confined to itself, as it were. In “Dissecting the Diamond”, I described how dissecting and discarding parts of a certain kind of diamond could generate one side of a Koch snowflake. But now I realize that Koch snowflakes are everywhere in the diamond — it’s a Koch rock. To see how, let’s start with the full diamond. It can be divided, or dissected, into five smaller versions of itself:

Dissectable diamond

When the diamond is dissected and three of the sub-diamonds are discarded, two sub-diamonds remain. Let’s call them sub-diamonds 1 and 2. When this dissection-and-discarding is repeated again and again, a familiar shape begins to appear:

Koch rock stage 1

Koch rock #2

Koch rock #3

Koch rock #4

Koch rock #5

Koch rock #6

Koch rock #7

Koch rock #8

Koch rock #9

Koch rock #10

Koch rock #11

Koch rock #12

Koch rock #13

Koch rock (animated)

Dissecting and discarding the diamond creates one side of a Koch triangle. Now see what happens when discarding is delayed and sub-diamonds 1 and 2 are allowed to appear in other parts of the diamond. Here again is the dissectable diamond:

Dia-flake stage 1

If no sub-diamonds are discarded after dissection, the full diamond looks like this when each sub-diamond is dissected in its turn:

Dia-flake #2

Now let’s start discarding sub-diamonds:

Dia-flake #3

And now discard everything but sub-diamonds 1 and 2:

Dia-flake #4

Dia-flake #5

Dia-flake #6

Dia-flake #7

Dia-flake #8

Dia-flake #9

Dia-flake #10

Now full Koch snowflakes have appeared inside the diamond — count ’em! I see seven full ’flakes:

Dia-flake #11

Dia-flake (animated)

But that isn’t the limit. In fact, an infinite number of full ’flakes appear inside the diamond — it truly is a Koch rock. Here are examples of how to find more full ’flakes:

Dia-flake 2 (static)

Dia-flake 2 (animated)

Dia-flake 3 (static)

Dia-flake 3 (animated)

Previously pre-posted:

• Dissecting the Diamond — other fractals in the dissectable diamond