JMH
Emeritus, Contributor
- Apr 2, 2012
- 7,197
Everything from broccoli florets to riverbeds divide and branch in fractal patterns, or patterns that repeat themselves at ever-smaller scales. In Egypt, archaeologists are taking advantage of that fact to look for riverbed patterns in the Western Desert that don't appear fractal, the New Scientist reported. The Western Desert is where King Sneferu — father of the pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid of Giza — practiced his own pyramid-building. If nature loves fractals, the researchers reasoned, then non-fractal riverbeds may have been altered during Sneferu's and other Old Kingdom rulers' reigns, 4,500 years ago.
http://www.livescience.com/21731-egytian-pharaohs-left-fractal-footprint.html