Fractals in Physical Science

The theory of fractals has been used to describe complicated shapes in nature, such as clouds or trees, by introducing a new quantity called the fractal dimension. This revolutionary theory has been applied in many fields and is being compared to Newton's theory of mechanics. This textbook begins with an elementary introduction to fractals, and goes on to deal with more sophisticated problems, identifying a number of examples of fractals in nature and explaining how to identify fractal patterns. Computer stimluated fractals are also introduced with short programs for use on personal computers. For the more advanced reader, the text also deals with theoretical topics such as chaos, percolation, statistical models of turbulence and renormalization group methods.