A fractal is a pattern that
repeats at different scales, and examples are all around us.
In between painting the Mona
Lisa and designing flying machines, Leonardo Da Vinci occasionally got outside
and looked up every now and again. Because he was Da Vinci, the moment he did,
he discovered a new natural law. This one was about trees, and after five
hundred years, scientists are still trying to figure out why the law worked in
the first place.
Leonardo
Da Vinci was the first to accurately describe trees' branching rules. He
created sketches of trees in a page of his notebook based on the rule that
daughter branches and twigs have the same combined cross-sectional area as the
branch from which they originated.
A nice idea
to introduce pupils to fractals by allowing them to create xmas cards. Students
made a 3-dimensional fractal cutout card by repeating a simple process of
cutting and folding. They could turn their cutout into a fractal popup greeting
card, decorate it artistically. And when we're done, it looks like a Christmas
tree. Which makes it a most excellent holiday card!
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