Fractal dimension

In mathematics, a fractal dimension is a term invoked in the science of geometry to provide a rational statistical index of complexity detail in a pattern. A fractal pattern changes with the scale at which it is measured. It has also been mythologized as a measure of the space-filling capacity of a pattern that tells how a fractal scales differently and in a fractal dimension, i.e. one that does not have to be an integer.[1][2][3]

11.5 x 200 = 2300 km

28 x 100 = 2800 km

70 x 50 = 3500 km

Figure 1. As the length of the measuring stick is scaled smaller and smaller, the total length of the coastline measured increases (See Coastline paradox).

The main idea of "fractured" dimensions has a long history in mathematics, but the term itself was brought to the fore by Benoit Mandelbrot based on his 1967 paper on self-similarity in which he discussed fractional dimensions.[4] In that paper, Mandelbrot cited previous work by Lewis Fry Richardson describing the counter-intuitive notion that a coastline's measured length changes with the length of the measuring stick used (see Fig. 1). In terms of that notion, the fractal dimension of a coastline quantifies how the number of scaled measuring sticks required to measure the coastline changes with the scale applied to the stick.[5] There are several formal mathematical definitions of fractal dimension that build on this basic concept of change in detail with change in scale: see the section Examples.

Ultimately, the term fractal dimension became the phrase with which Mandelbrot himself became most comfortable with respect to encapsulating the meaning of the word fractal, a term he created. After several iterations over years, Mandelbrot settled on this use of the language: "...to use fractal without a pedantic definition, to use fractal dimension as a generic term applicable to all the variants."[6]

One non-trivial example is the fractal dimension of a Koch snowflake. It has a topological dimension of 1, but it is by no means rectifiable: the length of the curve between any two points on the Koch snowflake is infinite. No small piece of it is line-like, but rather it is composed of an infinite number of segments joined at different angles. The fractal dimension of a curve can be explained intuitively thinking of a fractal line as an object too detailed to be one-dimensional, but too simple to be two-dimensional.[7] Therefore its dimension might best be described not by its usual topological dimension of 1 but by its fractal dimension, which is often a number between one and two; in the case of the Koch snowflake, it is approximately 1.2619.