TY - CHAP
T1 - Fractal
AU - La Mantia, Francesco
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - The term fractal was first coined by the Polish-born, French-American mathe- matician Benoît Mandelbrot in the mid 1970s (cf. at least Mandelbrot 1975; Stewart 2010). It comes from the Latin word fractus “which has the same root of fraction and fragment and means “irregular or fragmented” (cf. Mandelbrot 1982: 3, in Emmer 2012: 7). Furthermore “it is related to frangere which means to break" (cf. Mandel- brot 1982: 4, in Emmer 2012: 7). Loosely speaking, a fractal is a mathematical object, such as a curve, or, more generally, as a set, “that displays exact or approx- imate self-similarity on different scales” (cf. at least Birken and Coon 2008: 134). Put in more technical terms, a fractal is a geometrical set characterized by the so-called property of internal homothety (cf. Mandelbrot 1975; Vialar 2009). It is a version of a Euclidean concept known precisely as homothety (cf. at least Dodge 2012; La Mantia 2004). As it is well known, homotheties are applications of the plane R2 or of the space R3 onto itself.
AB - The term fractal was first coined by the Polish-born, French-American mathe- matician Benoît Mandelbrot in the mid 1970s (cf. at least Mandelbrot 1975; Stewart 2010). It comes from the Latin word fractus “which has the same root of fraction and fragment and means “irregular or fragmented” (cf. Mandelbrot 1982: 3, in Emmer 2012: 7). Furthermore “it is related to frangere which means to break" (cf. Mandel- brot 1982: 4, in Emmer 2012: 7). Loosely speaking, a fractal is a mathematical object, such as a curve, or, more generally, as a set, “that displays exact or approx- imate self-similarity on different scales” (cf. at least Birken and Coon 2008: 134). Put in more technical terms, a fractal is a geometrical set characterized by the so-called property of internal homothety (cf. Mandelbrot 1975; Vialar 2009). It is a version of a Euclidean concept known precisely as homothety (cf. at least Dodge 2012; La Mantia 2004). As it is well known, homotheties are applications of the plane R2 or of the space R3 onto itself.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10447/479794
M3 - Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary
SN - 978-3-030-51323-8
T3 - LECTURE NOTES IN MORPHOGENESIS
SP - 209
EP - 214
BT - Glossary of Morphology
ER -