Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Fractals

Okay, back to The Shack. The character playing the Holy Spirit in this book makes a point of mentioning fractals and how much she loves them. If you're like me and have to use Wikipedia to figure out what the heck a fractal is, here's the definition: "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole." Like, I don't know, a snowflake? Have you ever looked closely at one? I doubt a human could come up with something so complex and yet billions of snowflakes fall daily and no one sees most of them except the One who created them.

What incredible structure and design for something so simple.

Or leaves. Or mushrooms. Are they made the way they are to please us or to please God? Or our own bodies. We're fractals, folks! Take a close look at your skin. Or our eyes. Did you ever stop and think about how amazing it is that we can see? If I ask him nicely, maybe my dad will share how awesome our eyes are. (He's got glaucoma and is enamored with the pictures that the eye specialist took of his eyes.) We are fearfully and wonderfully made.

I've been watching the BBC's Planet Earth and my brain is full of fractals. Now that I know what they are, I'm seeing them everywhere.

Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
--Luke 12:27

Picture stolen from wikipedia. It's an eye scan, can you believe it?

3 comments:

Marian Dean said...

A real eye opener this one, so to speak. What a lovely word Fractal... yes I shall look out for a place to use it and astonish my husband.
Bye the way, I also pinch things from Wiki and the like, but I am a bit worried now after reading one of my blog friends post today. see
http://lifeinwindermere.blogspot.com/

What do you think?
Love Granny

Woman in a Window said...

This is certainly a truth, and far beyond what I can understand, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made."

Janet said...

Here's a website with a bunch of fractals, and a program to make your own. I haven't tried it yet.

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/01/40-amazing-3d-fractals-using-apophysis/

That picture instantly made me think of the eye from Lord of the Rings.