Fractals

Alan Beardon, University of Cambridge

There are fractals all around you in nature. They sound like very mathematical things (and they are), but you see them every time you look at a piece of broccoli, or a cloud, or a tree, or a mountain range. It is also very common these days to see pictures of fractals on posters, T-shirts, mugs and so on.

The fractal in the image on the right is the Sierpinski gasket, which you will discover in the project work on this page.

The pages linked to this webpage give students the opportunity to find out about fractals around us, to make some mathematical fractals, and to find out a bit about them.

This webpage was put together for videoconferences with primary and secondary schools (year 6 and 7 groups). Any student or teacher is now welcome to use it. Comments or requests for help should be sent to Jenny Gage (jag55@cam.ac.uk).