In this week's episode, notes from Bill Felker's 40 years of observing what happens in nature.
Bill Felker: In the late 1970s, a research scientist named Benoit Mandelbrot looked at fluctuations in all kinds of phenomena, from the stock market to cloud formations. He came to the conclusion that these very different occurrences were related to one another as patterns and that they revealed an underlying force that pervaded every aspect of life on Earth and each of the events and things he studied. Mandelbrot found what he called self-similar systems, and he called these systems fractals.
Picture a month or two of a graph of the Dow Jones averages. That's a fractal pattern. Mandelbrot asserted that fractals are showing us a life principle, not unlike a yin-yang law that underlies not only weather or stocks and heartbeats but almost everything from the shape of ferns and fjords to the filigree in the lungs and leaves.
While fractals reflect some universal designing set in nature, and if they are in fact the signatures of nature, then what are we to make of them? During the Middle Ages, the doctrine of signatures held that the shape of any natural object, like a leaf or root, held the key to its medicinal use. Modern fractal theory posits a not so dissimilar view that pattern. This might not only hold the key to understanding the rhythm but also the purpose and the meaning of phenomenon. Some analysts believe that fractals could hold the secret of the universe, explain the ultimate causes not only of our personal decisions, but of the outside forces that influence them.
So, in a way, All of the ups and downs of nature and of our lives are part of what Mandelbrot would call self-similar patterns. Do they have meaning, and what is their connection?
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will's Almanack. I'll be back again next week with notes for the third week of early spring. In the meantime, follow the ups and downs. Look for the patterns.
Bill Felker contributes to newspapers nationwide, including the "Yellow Springs News." Bill resides in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Poor Will's Almanack is brought to you by Tree Care Inc., offering services in arboriculture throughout the region. Trees make life better.
