Inside at least one mosque is fractal art that was created before the word "fractal" was coined.

[Boojatta]

Has anybody heard of that? Does anybody have a link to photos? I saw a photo of such a thing once, but cannot recall where I saw it.

[Poll_Blind]

1. Here you go, and link to article as well:

Medieval Mosques Illuminated by Math

How cool is that?

PB

[Boojatta]

3. Thank you for the link.

The "hard for humans to process" part is amusing. Is listening to a symphony orchestra also an example of what is nowadays considered hard work for human beings?

When some people first look at a quasi-crystal pattern, Steinhardt says, they immediately notice repeating motifs. These people assume the pattern is repeating in a regular way, like the tiles on a bathroom floor. Others see that the pattern repeats but not in a regular way, and they assume that it is random.

In fact, the pattern isn't random. Steinhardt says if you do the math, you see that it all fits together in predictable way. But intuitively, it's hard for some people to see.

"It is hard to picture," he says, "and it's hard for humans to process these patterns and interpret them."

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Beautiful, and mathematically fascinating, but what's fractal about it?

It's a tessellation.

[haikugal]

2. Did a search

and came up with this page. You can choose...hope it helps.

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=fractals&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#sclient=psy&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&q=fractals+in+mosque&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=8f79bafd4477ca0f

[Boojatta]

7. If either of us is interested in Religion or Theology, then

here's a place to look for it.

[TheMadMonk]

4. Define fractal. Serpinski's triangle and similar repetetive simple fractals...

...are pretty self emergent. Given a pen and a piece of paper, and the idea to start subdividing a shape, out they pop.

Mandelbrot style complex mathematical fractals can't be created without the aid of a computer. I believe a few attempts were made to hand plot the Mandlebrot set, none got past the crudest of (and rather inaccurate) first approximations of it's shape.

[applegrove]

5. They studied Jackson Pollack's art and found out the better the piece the better the fractal

it was. fractal art just reproduces the repeated patterns found in nature.

[kentauros]

6. It's called "sacred geometry"

and is heavily used in Middle Eastern art.

This is an excellent site for information and examples of the artform:

Arabic Art

Hope that helps :)

[AlecBGreen]

8. thanks for the link!

I am a big fan of geometry & arabic art. Gracias!

[kentauros]

10. You're welcome!

:)

I love that site, too. The author of it's very knowledgeable and there's so much to explore (and read!)

[onager]

11. Something else for fans of Arabic design...

I lived in Egypt for nearly 4 years, and pretty soon I recognized a pretty common theme in the minarets (prayer towers) attached to mosques.

Almost all Egyptian minarets have a square bottom section, followed by an octagonal middle structure, finally topped with a circular section.

That's exactly the same design as the famous Pharos of Alexandria - the huge lighthouse that stood for over a thousand years in the harbor of Alexandria (and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World). Square base, octagonal middle, round top.

As an atheist, that always tickled me - all those minarets, copied from a design originated by a bunch of Greek...well, Macedonian...pagans. (i.e., the ruling Ptolemy clan in Alexandria).