Mysterious Patterns: Finding Fractals in Nature
Written by Sarah C. Campbell
Patterns exist in the natural world, not easily divided into categories like circle, triangle or square. What are we do make of them? Things like branches in trees or bolts of lightning?
A mathematician named Benoit Mandelbrot noticed similar patterns in natural shapes. The kinds of shapes that make the fronds on a fern also continue to make the whole fern. The same can be said about the development of broccoli or branches on a tree.
The beautiful photographs in this book as well as the simple, yet clear diagrams make it easy to see the patterns described.
The afterword about Mandelbrot also tells readers that fractals are how the wiring of the Internet works and would be necessary to make something like Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak to work.
This beautiful book is a fantastic way to interest readers in mathematics, science and the natural world. Third grade readers will be able to read it on their own. Teachers and librarians will find it useful in fulfilling the core curriculum standards as well spring-boarding a student’s interest far and beyond anything they considered up to this point. Art teachers can use this volume to entice students to think about using fractals in their artistic endeavors. What a wonderful book this will be in every school library!
Title: Mysterious Patterns: Finding Fractals in Nature- Author: Sarah C. Campbell
- Illustrator: Photographs by Sarah C. Campbell and Richard P. Campbell
- Publisher: Boyds Mills Press, 2014
- Reviewer: Elizabeth Swartz
- Format: Hardcover, 32 pages
- ISBN: 978-1-62091-627-8
- Genre: Nonfiction
- Grade Level: 3 to 6
- Extras: Step-by-step activity for making a fractal, afterword about the man who discovered fractals