Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.  

Benoit Mandelbrot, in his introduction to The Fractal Geometry of Nature

The Fractal Foundation describes a fractal as ““a never-ending pattern that repeats itself in different scales. This property is ‘self-similarity’”. These repeated patterns are found in the “roughness” of nature and the structure of our bodies, creating an order which is thought to be the subconscious reason we have such deep emotional responses to the beauty of nature.

Human beings are fascinated with the symmetry and beauty of fractals despite (or perhaps because) they are mathematically incredibly complex. Benoit Mandelbrot, a mathematician and polymath, coined the term “fractal” while working to understand the “roughness and self-similarity” in nature. Well, actually, his first work was looking at the “wild randomness” of the stock market… but as he explained, his formal work at IBM for 35 years allowed him to ask deeper questions.

“Dramatically referred to as “the fingerprint of life,” their repetition of patterns across multiple scales forms the basic building blocks of many of nature’s patterns ranging from clouds, trees, and mountains through to our brains, blood vessels, and lungs.”

Fractal Fluency: Processing of Fractal Stimuli Across Sight, Sound, and Touch, Taylor et. al. 2024

Most of us haven’t heard of fractals… but knowing about them allows us to see the world and our studies in medicine through (literally) a different lens. How cool is that?