Historically, science has developed by reducing complex situations to simple ones, analyzing the components and synthesizing the original situation. While this 'reductionist' approach has been extremely successful, there are phenomena of such complexity that one cannot simplify them without eliminating the problem itself. Recently, attention has turned to such problems in a wide variety of fields. This is in part due to the development of fractal geometry. Fractal geometry provides the mathematical tools for handling complexity. The present volume is a collection of papers that deal with the application of fractals in both traditional scientific disciplines and in applied fields. This volume shows the advance of our understanding of complex phenomena across a spectrum of disciplines. While these diverse fields work on very different problems, fractals provide a unifying formalism for approaching these problems.

In the words of B. B. Mandelbrot's contribution to this important collection of original papers, fractal geometry is a "new geometric language, which is geared towards the study of diverse aspects of diverse objects, either mathematical or natural, that are not smooth, but rough and fragmented to the same degree at all scales." This book will be of interest to all physical and biological scientists studying these phenomena. It is based on a Royal Society discussion meeting held in 1988. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book contains state of the art contributions to this rapidly growing research area. It will be of essential value to mathematicians, physicists and engineers working in the fields of fractals and related phenomena and to researchers working in medicine and the life sciences.

Fractals are intimately related to the nonlinear processes in nature. Whereas studies of dynamics may lead to the chaotic phenomena, analysis of the underlying geometry leads to fractals. Currently, the field of fractals represents a fast developing research area.This publication contains state-of-the-art contributions exploring a spread of applications right across the disciplines, from physics and mathematics, through astronomy, biophysics, ecology and geography to image processing, medicine and turbulence. It will prove a valuable addition to the library of many a scientist interested in the field of fractals and related phenomena.

Fractals: A User's Guide for the Natural Sciences explains Mandelbrot's fractal geometry and describes some of its applications in the natural world. Written to enable students and researchers to master the methods of this timely subject, the book steers a middle course between the formalityof many papers in mathematics and the informality of picture-oriented books on fractals. It is both a logically developed text and a `fractals for users' handbook.Fractal geometry exploits a characteristic property of the real world self-similarity - to find simple rules for the assembly of complex natural objects. Beginning with the foundations of measurement in Euclidean geometry, the authors progress from analogues in the geometry of random fractals toillustrative applications spanning the natural sciences: the developmental biology of neurons and pancreatic islets; fluctuations of bird populations; patterns in vegetative ecosystems; and even earthquake models. The final section provides a toolbox of user-ready programs. This volume is anessential resource for all natural scientists interested in working with fractals.

The history of describing natural objects using geometry is as old as the advent of science itself, in which traditional shapes are the basis of our intuitive understanding of geometry. However, nature is not restricted to such Euclidean objects which are only characterized typically by integer dimensions. Hence, the conventional geometric approach cannot meet the requirements of solving or analysing nonlinear problems which are related with natural phenomena, therefore, the fractal theory has been born, which aims to understand complexity and provide an innovative way to recognize irregularity and complex systems. Although the concepts of fractal geometry have found wide applications in many forefront areas of science, engineering and societal issues, they also have interesting implications of a more practical nature for the older classical areas of science. Since its discovery, there has been a surge of research activities in using this powerful concept in almost every branch of scientific disciplines to gain deep insights into many unresolved problems. This book includes eight chapters which focus on gathering cutting-edge research and proposing application of fractals features in both traditional scientific disciplines and in applied fields.