Fractal patterns in growing bacterial colonies

As many people will remember from school science classes, bacteria growing on solid surfaces form colonies that can be easily visible to the naked eye. Each of these is a complex biological system in its own right; colonies ...

The universal beauty of the mountains can be seen in graphs

Mountains have character. The continuous gentle, wavy hills and wide valleys of the Carpathians, Appalachians or lower parts of the Alps contrast strongly with the soaring peaks, ragged ridges and deep ravines of the high ...

Researchers simulate the process of adhesive wear

Surface wear describes the process of material loss when two surfaces come into contact with each other. It has significant economic, social and health consequences—consider the fine particles emitted by moving vehicles. ...

Famous 'sandpile model' shown to move like a traveling sand dune

The so-called Abelian sandpile model has been studied by scientists for more than 30 years to better understand a physical phenomenon called self-organized criticality, which appears in many real-life situations such as the ...

Research team demonstrates fractal light from lasers

Fractal patterns are common in nature, including in the geometric patterns of a tortoise shell, the structure of a snail shell, the leaves of a succulent plant that repeat to create an intricate pattern, and the frost pattern ...

The splendid generative potential of the Sierpinski triangle

One transistor can become an oscillator with a surprising richness of behavior. However, even more interesting effects emerge if the structure of connections is fractal and shows some imperfections. Could similar rules explain ...

Physicists build fractal shape out of electrons

In physics, it is well-known that electrons behave very differently in three dimensions, two dimensions or one dimension. These behaviours give rise to different possibilities for technological applications and electronic ...

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