Picture Of The Day

I was watching The Matrix Revolutions last night and the opening computer-generated sequence got me thinking about fractals. If you're unfamiliar:

A fractal is generally "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,"^[1] a property called self-similarity. Roots of mathematical interest on fractals can be traced back to the late 19th Century, the term however was coined by Benoît Mandelbrot in 1975 and was derived from the Latin fractus meaning "broken" or "fractured."

Basically, it's something that looks the same no matter how much you magnify it. They occur in nature all the time and they're some of the most goddamn beautiful things on the planet. The picture above is of Romanesco Broccoli or Roman Cauliflower, an edible variant form of cauliflower. I've never eaten it myself but I could look at it all day long.