Kaleidoscopes and fractals

Since childhood one thing that amazed me was playing with a kaleidoscope. That “magical” tube with the shape of a spyglass in which there were small colourful pieces. These pieces created different shapes that changed depending on the turns you gave to the tube creating amazing and unique forms.

Later on I discovered that these kinds of shapes were called fractals as a frequent phenomenon in nature that can’t be explained by classical theories. Very interesting, isn’t it? In mathematics, fractals cause controversy because they have a calculable area, but their perimteter is infinite. What's more, they have finite shapes.

Fractals may seem something complicated and difficult to see, but if we examinate them we can see that their are made of simple figueres repeated a number of times.

It is very easy to make our own fractals like snowflackes using triangles as the base of them, or hexagones, or a different type of figure to create an unique fractal.

We are also surrounded by them, in places like a broccoli or a sunflower.

            

                                   

Geometry is everywhere, even in the most common, but amazing places.