Popular science written by Dr. Abhijit Kar Gupta, e-mail: kg.abhi@gmail.

com 1

FRACTAL – what is it?

-Abhijit Kar Gupta

Geometry plays an important role in our perception of things all around. We learn
the shapes, forms, growths or decay in Nature through the concept of Geometry. We
here discuss some forms of Geometry which are peculiar as opposed to the
Euclidean Geometry we are familiar with.

Let us begin with a line; straight or curved. The ‘measure’ of a line segment is its
length l . Line is a one dimensional object (Euclidean dimension d = 1 ). A square or a
circle is two‐dimensional ( d = 2) ; the measure is here ‘area’. For a square, area = l 2
and for a circle it is π .l 2 . Likewise for a three‐dimensional object such as a cube or a
sphere, the volume l 3 or (4 / 3)π .l 3 is the ‘measure’ of the corresponding object here.
We can have measurement of any irregular surface area or a volume and check that
the area or the volume comes as something proportional to l 2 or l 3 , where l is the
measuring scale.
In mathematical language, length is volume in one dimension and area is volume in
2‐dimension. Anyway, what we see is that the ‘volume’ carries the information of
dimension. For example, we can say that the powers 2 and 3 over l in the above are
nothing but the dimensions of the objects, sometimes called ‘embedding dimension’
(the minimum dimension where the object is embedded). In general, volume ∝ l d ,
where d = 1, 2 or 3.

Let us now take a square and divide this into 4 equal parts as the following:

The area of each piece has become 1/4th of the

original and the length of each reduces to ½ of the
original.

If we now subdivide each of the 4 small squares into 4 equal pieces as before, the
area of each of the smallest pieces reduces to 1/4th of that of a small square of the
above and likewise length reduces to ½ of that of the small square. We can do this
exercise as long as we wish. A little investigation reveals that at any stage, the
number of one smallest square piece is inversely proportional to the square of its
size: the smaller you cut more pieces you get. For example, in the 1st generation
( n = 1) we have N 1 = 4 , l1 = 1 / 2 ; in the 2nd generation ( n = 2) , we have N 2 = 16 ,
l 2 = 1 / 4 and so on.

The area reduces to 8/9th of the original area and the total border
(perimeter) of the square geometry increases as it creates new borders
inside.
Popular science written by Dr. Abhijit Kar Gupta, e-mail: kg.abhi@gmail.com 2

When we perform the same thing over the remaining 8 equal square segments, the
resulting figure looks like the following:

As we go on doing the same thing repeatedly we end up with

a peculiarly perforated carpet whose remaining area goes
down and down and the perimeter goes up and up at every
step. The object is self similar as we blow up a certain
portion, it looks like the original.

If N n be the number of the smallest square pieces (that

comprise the original square) at the n‐th generation and N n +1
be that of the (n + 1) ‐th generation where l n and l n +1 are the corresponding lengths,
we can write:
2
N n +1  l n 
=   .
Nn  l n +1 
N   l 
Therefore, we can write: ln n +1  ln n  = 2 . Thus we get back the dimension 2
 Nn   l n +1 
of the square. The same procedure can be repeated for a cube and likewise we
arrive at dimension 3. Thus in general, for any object in 2 or 3 or any other
dimension, we can write,
N 
ln n +1 
Nn 
d=  , d = 1, 2, 3….
 ln 
ln 
 l n +1 

Now we can think of a different kind of geometry. Let us begin with a square again.
Divide this into 4 equal pieces as before but this time cut out the central piece. We
now have the dimension (length) of each of the small squares is 1/3rd of the original
big square and we are now left with the number of pieces to be one less. So,
1
N 1 = 9 − 1 = 8 and l1 = l , l being the length of each side of the original square. As
3
1
we repeat the same for the 2nd generation, we have N 2 = 8 × 8 = 64 and l1 = l .
9
I we now go on doing this indefinitely, we are left with a carpet like structure where
square holes are everywhere and of all length scales. This carpet is very special and
is known as ‘Sierpinsky carpet’. Take a small portion of this carpet and blow it up,
it appears the same original full carpet. This means the object is self similar. If we
just consider two generations, we can evaluate the dimension of this carpet:
Popular science written by Dr. Abhijit Kar Gupta, e-mail: kg.abhi@gmail.com 3

 64 
ln 
8 ln 8 3 ln 2
d=   = = ≅ 1.89 which is less than 2.
9 ln 3 ln 3
ln 
3
Thus we arrive at a peculiar self similar geometrical object whose dimension is a
fractional number (1.89) although the object is embedded in 2‐dimension. This kind
of geometrical object is called FRACTAL.

Think of another example where we start from a equilateral triangle. Divide the
triangle into four equal parts and take out the middle one. Repeat the same
procedure for each of the small parts in the successive generations which lead to the
following self similar object called ‘Sierpinsky gasket’. Consider the number of
pieces and the dimensions in the three successive generations: N 1 = 3, l1 = l / 2 ;
N 2 = 3 × 3 = 9, l1 = l / 4 and N 3 = 3 × 3 × 3 = 27, l3 = l / 8 .
ln(27 / 4) ln 3
The dimension of the above object is then d = = ≅ 1.58 which is again
ln(8 / 4) ln 2
a fractional number and is less than 2.
This way we can create self similar geometrical objects in 2‐dimension in a regular
fashion, the dimensions of those are found to be some fraction less than 2. The same
can be repeated on an object in 3‐dimension like a cube, the self similar objects are
found to have dimensions to be some fraction less than 3 but greater than 2.

We may notice the following essential properties of these fractal objects:

• Self‐similarity in all length scales
• Perimeter of such a object keeps increasing indefinitely
• The volume to surface ratio also diminishes with the successive iterations.

Let us examine:
If p denotes the perimeter, then the successive values of it for the first three
generations for a Sierpinsky gasket are
l l l
p1 = 3 × 3 × , p 2 = 9 × 3 × and p3 = 27 × 3 × .
2 4 8
Now,
l
27 × 3 ×
p3 8 = 3 > 1. In general, we find p = 3 p . So, with each
= n +1 n
p2 l 2 2
9 × 3×
4
iteration, the perimeter increases by 1.5 times than that of the previous generation.
Similarly, for the successive volumes we find
2 n
3 3 3 3 3
V1 = V , V1 = × V =   V and in this way Vn =   V . Thus we have
4 4 4 4 4
Popular science written by Dr. Abhijit Kar Gupta, e-mail: kg.abhi@gmail.com 4

Vn +1 3
= < 1.
Vn 4
The volume successively goes down to zero in successive iterations.

The objects so far discussed are some regular geometrical objects. However, in
Nature we often come across certain kinds of objects, which though not regular
geometries, but possess self‐similarity in all scales (in statistical sense). They also
have other two physical properties just discussed. One needs to characterize them
geometrically, mathematically and physically to understand them and to utilize
them. Such an example is a sedimentary rock. They have holes in all length scales
and deep inside the earth, under the sea, they hold oil – a very precious thing
indeed! So, understanding them is all the more important.

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