Fractal Applet

Controls

•	Make New Fractals: click to create a new fractal.
•	Colors: choose a color scheme from the drop down menu.
•	Iterations: higher values increase the detail and affects the color.The more you zoom, the more iterations you will need. Iterations repeatedly apply a series of operations to progressively advance towards a solution you are content with.
•	Previous: displays the previous fractal you created.
•	Next: displays the next fractal you created.
•	Min Real: the minimum real value.
•	Max Real: the maximum real value.
•	Min Imaginary: the minimum imaginary value.
•	Max Imaginary: the maximum imaginary value.
•	Draw Julia Set: The Julia set consists of those points whose long-time behavior under repeated iteration can change drastically under arbitrarily small perturbations.

Creative Play

Enjoy creating your own fractals with David Leberknight's absorbing online applet.

A fractal is any object that is self-similar; that is, every one of its parts resembles the whole. A fractal is a geometric shape that can be subdivided into parts, each of which is a reduced-size copy of the whole. The term was coined by Benoît Mandelbrot in 1975 and was derived from the Latin fractus meaning "broken" or "fractured".

The "imaginary" number known simply as "i" is defined as the square root of -1. This (most famous) fractal, known as the "Mandelbrot set", resides in the real-imaginary plane with real numbers on the horizontal and imaginary numbers on the vertical. So for example, a point in the "Mandelbrot set" might be (0.5 1.5i) - note the i. "i" is fundamental to physics. You can't model light, quantum mechanics or fractals without it.

As you change the fractal consider its form and how they are similar to the building blocks of many natural and man made objects.

Making Fractal Screenshots

Take screenshots of your fractals and save them to a folder for future use in your own artwork and creations. A ‘screenshot’ is a still, digital image, or ‘snapshot’ of what appears on all or part of a computer screen. The best file formats to save screenshots are as a .jpg or .gif. Bitmaps (.bmp) are very large in comparison (often as much as twenty times as large) and are therefore not as convenient.

- Hold down the Alt key and press the Prt Scr key (on most keyboards this is to the right of the F12 key and above the Insert key)

- Run Microsoft Paint (Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Paint)

- Select Edit -> Paste from the menu

- Save that to a .gif or .jpg file