These days computer-generated fractal patterns are everywhere, from squiggly designs on computer art posters to illustrations in the most serious of physics journals. Interest continues to grow among scientists and, rather surprisingly, artists and designers. This book provides visual demonstrations of complicated and beautiful structures that can arise in systems, based on simple rules. It also presents papers on seemingly paradoxical combinations of randomness and structure in systems of mathematical, physical, biological, electrical, chemical, and artistic interest. Topics include: iteration, cellular automata, bifurcation maps, fractals, dynamical systems, patterns of nature created through simple rules, and aesthetic graphics drawn from the universe of mathematics and art.Chaos and Fractals is divided into six parts: Geometry and Nature; Attractors; Cellular Automata, Gaskets, and Koch Curves; Mandelbrot, Julia and Other Complex Maps; Iterated Function Systems; and Computer Art.Additionally, information on the latest practical applications of fractals and on the use of fractals in commercial products such as the antennas and reaction vessels is presented. In short, fractals are increasingly finding application in practical products where computer graphics and simulations are integral to the design process. Each of the six sections has an introduction by the editor including the latest research, references, and updates in the field. This book is enhanced with numerous color illustrations, a comprehensive index, and the many computer program examples encourage reader involvement.

For almost ten years chaos and fractals have been enveloping many areas of mathematics and the natural sciences in their power, creativity and expanse. Reaching far beyond the traditional bounds of mathematics and science to the realms of popular culture, they have captured the attention and enthusiasm of a worldwide audience. The fourteen chapters of the book cover the central ideas and concepts, as well as many related topics including, the Mandelbrot Set, Julia Sets, Cellular Automata, L-Systems, Percolation and Strange Attractors, and each closes with the computer code for a central experiment. In the two appendices, Yuval Fisher discusses the details and ideas of fractal image compression, while Carl J.G. Evertsz and Benoit Mandelbrot introduce the foundations and implications of multifractals.

This fascinating book explores the connections between chaos theory, physics, biology, and mathematics. Its award-winning computer graphics, optical illusions, and games illustrate the concept of self-similarity, a typical property of fractals. The author -- hailed by Publishers Weekly as a modern Lewis Carroll -- conveys memorable insights in the form of puns and puzzles. 1992 edition.

For students with a background in elementary algebra, this book provides a vivid introduction to the key phenomena and ideas of chaos and fractals, including the butterfly effect, strange attractors, fractal dimensions, Julia Sets and the Mandelbrot Set, power laws, and cellular automata. The book includes over 200 end-of-chapter exercises.

The terms chaos and fractals have received widespread attention in recent years. The alluring computer graphics images associated with these terms have heightened interest among scientists in these ideas. This volume contains the introductory survey lectures delivered in the American Mathematical Society Short Course, Chaos and Fractals: The Mathematics Behind the Computer Graphics, on August 6-7, 1988, given in conjunction with the AMS Centennial Meeting in Providence, Rhode Island. In his overview, Robert L. Devaney introduces such key topics as hyperbolicity, the period doubling route to chaos, chaotic dynamics, symbolic dynamics and the horseshoe, and the appearance of fractals as the chaotic set for a dynamical system. Linda Keen and Bodil Branner discuss the Mandelbrot set and Julia sets associated to the complex quadratic family z -> z2 + c. Kathleen T. Alligood, James A. Yorke, and Philip J. Holmes discuss some of these topics in higher dimensional settings, including the Smale horseshoe and strange attractors. Jenny Harrison and Michael F. Barnsley give an overview of fractal geometry and its applications. -- from dust jacket.

The fundamental concepts of fractal geometry and chaotic dynamics, along with the related concepts of multifractals, self-similar time series, wavelets, and self-organized criticality, are introduced in this book, for a broad range of readers interested in complex natural phenomena. Now in a greatly expanded, second edition, this book relates fractals and chaos to a variety of geological and geophysical applications. All concepts are introduced at the lowest possible level of mathematics consistent with their understanding, so that the reader requires only a background in basic physics and mathematics.

This exceptional book is concerned with the application of fractals and chaos, as well as other concepts from nonlinear dynamics to biomedical phenomena. Herein we seek to communicate the excitement being experienced by scientists upon making application of these concepts within the life sciences. Mathematical concepts are introduced using biomedical data sets and the phenomena being explained take precedence over the mathematics. In this new edition what has withstood the test of time has been updated and modernized; speculations that were not borne out have been expunged and the breakthroughs that have occurred in the intervening years are emphasized. The book provides a comprehensive overview of a nascent theory of medicine, including a new chapter on the theory of complex networks as they pertain to medicine.

Just 23 years ago Benoit Mandelbrot published his famous picture of the Mandelbrot set, but that picture has changed our view of the mathematical and physical universe. In this text, Mandelbrot offers 25 papers from the past 25 years, many related to the famous inkblot figure. Of historical interest are some early images of this fractal object produced with a crude dot-matrix printer. The text includes some items not previously published.

The book is concerned with the concepts of chaos and fractals, which are within the scopes of dynamical systems, geometry, measure theory, topology, and numerical analysis during the last several decades. It is revealed that a special kind of Poisson stable point, which we call an unpredictable point, gives rise to the existence of chaos in the quasi-minimal set. This is the first time in the literature that the description of chaos is initiated from a single motion. Chaos is now placed on the line of oscillations, and therefore, it is a subject of study in the framework of the theories of dynamical systems and differential equations, as in this book. The techniques introduced in the book make it possible to develop continuous and discrete dynamics which admit fractals as points of trajectories as well as orbits themselves. To provide strong arguments for the genericity of chaos in the real and abstract universe, the concept of abstract similarity is suggested.

Applications of Fractals and Chaos presents new developments in this rapidlydeveloping subject area. The presentation is more than merely theoretical, it specifically presents particular applications in a wide range of applications areas. Under the oceans, we consider the ways in which sponges and corals grow; we look, too, at the stability of ships on their surfaces. Land itself is modelled and applications to art, medicineand camouflage are presented. Readers should find general interest in the range of areas considered and should also be able to discover methods of value for their own specific areas of interest from studying the structure of related activities.