Do you see it?
It’s all around you in your everyday life.
It is in the waves of the ocean.
It is in the nerves of the leaves, in the branches of the trees, in the palm of your
hand.
It is the patterns found in this universe.
Do you see it now?
I think there is a reason that our reality is constantly clouded with our own thoughts.
If not for our thoughts, we wouldn’t be so distracted.
We would absorb the present moment more and I’m not sure if we could handle the intensity
of the present moment.
A single rock is filled with so many details, more than what you managed to notice so far
in your life.
If we actually take in all the details of the present moment, maybe we would just get
lost in it.
The universe seems so chaotic, so random, intricate and complex.
It is often considered to be beyond the grasp of mathematics, science & even art.
But, what do you see when you look at this picture?
It is called The Great Wave, a woodblock print by the 18th century Japanese artist Hokusai.
Look at it carefully.
A fractal is a mathematical set that exhibits a repeating pattern displayed at every scale.
I know that warning alarms are ringing at this very moment when I started talking about
a mathematical set.
It is really easy to explain.
Take a blank sheet of paper and draw a line from the center to the bottom, just like this one
Now draw two other lines at a 45-degree angle from the top of the first line.
and continue doing the same to all the lines that you draw, like this
and keep going on and this my friends is called The Fractal Canopy or the initial
stage of it.
Now put the pen down, go outside of your room and look at the nearest tree.
What do you see?
A mathematical set that exhibits a repeating pattern displayed at every scale.
It is not just in this tree.
It is found almost everywhere in nature.
In the mountain peaks, in the coastal lines, nerves inside you, the human heart beat.
It seems like the universe is following a self-similar code that repeats itself at every
scale.
When discussing fractal geometry we should absolutely talk about Benoit Mandelbrot.
He is a Polish born, French & American mathematician who refers to himself as a fractalist.
He is the one who coined the world ‘Fractals’.
He said that things that are considered chaotic, rough & complex in nature actually have a
“degree of order”.
He showed how visually complex things like mountains, rocks or a forest can be created
from simple rules.
He even displayed it by discovering the Madelbrot set in 1979.
In his book Fractals: Form, chances & dimension and Fractal Geometry of nature, he described
how these self-similar patterns are to be seen in even the complex structures of nature.
Because of his work in this area, fractal geometry is now used to produce computer generated
visual effects in movies, cancer research, telecommunication and many other fields.
One of my favorite fractal application researches is this:
In 1997 a group of researchers, West, Brown and Enquist tried to determine whether the
fractal structure of a single tree could predict how an entire forest is placed in the eco system
One of the researches headed to the northwestern part of Costa Rica to a government allocated
rain forest.
They measured the fractal structure of the tree by measuring the placement of the braches,
the gap between them and then proceed to the forest to measure the placement of various
trees, big and small, within in the forest.
They found something quite amazing, for the lack of a better word.
The distribution of the branches in that tree they measured, almost exactly matched the
distribution of the trees in the forest.
Suddenly the work of nature which was thought to be beyond the grasp of humans, revealed
itself in the form of fractals.
If you think about it for a minute, it would be incredibly inefficient to have a set of
blue prints at every single stage of increasing size, but if you have a fractal code, a code
that says, when to branch as you get bigger and bigger, then, a very simple genetic code
can produce what looks like a complicated organism.
But Mandelbrot is not the first one to notice these self-similar patterns.
Remember the Japanese great wave.
Look at the self-similar waves at the end of giant wave in this picture and Hokusai is not the only
artist to notice this.
Actually fractal art is largely prevalent in ancient Indian architectures, and many
South East Asian temples and monuments exhibit fractal structures.
They are also prevalent in Islamic geometric patterns and African architecture.
It is safe to say that almost all of the ancient cultures from around the world seemed to have
an understanding of this fractal geometry present in the nature.
If you had watched my Simulation Hypothesis video, (I’m including that in the card above),
I’ve discussed whether this universe is a computer simulation, a result of an error
correcting computer code.
I’ve also briefly talked about finding the boundaries of the universe using probability.
From simulation hypothesis to fractal geometry, it seems like the universe or reality, is
inherently mathematical in nature and God, the one who created this universe is most
definitely, a mathematician.
So, next time when you are outside walking, or looking at a tree, give yourself couple
of minutes to really be present and register the patterns around you
Maybe the secret of the universe is right in front of us and we are just too distracted
to notice.
That’s it for this week’s episode.
I’ve added a lot of reading materials and sources about Fractal Geometry in the description
below.
You can check that out if you want to know more.
Have you ever noticed any of these patterns in your day-to-day life?
Maybe in your hand, in the night sky or on your cat?
I would love to know about it.
So please share your experience in the comments below.
Also, if you enjoyed this video, leave a like and most importantly share it with your friends
in social media, so that new viewers could find this channel and Subscribe to this channel
if you haven’t already, as I will be posting new videos like this, every single week.
I’ve also included my simulation hypothesis video and a video that I did about the mysteries
of death.
You can click and watch, right here.
Thank you so much for watching and see you soon.