Friday Fractal LI: Gray Feathers

Fractals must lend themselves well to feathery forms. Last time, I used a Mandelbrot set to mimic the soft leaves of the Yarrow plant. Here, I decided to use the same Mandelbrot set to create feathery forms of a different sort:

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These varying shades of gray were borrowed not from a plant, but from one of our most intelligent feathered friends:  

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A close-up view of the feathers under the eye of an African Gray parrot (Psittacus erithacus). Photo by Martin Richard. 

What a marvelous creature the African Gray is--not only can it posses an extensive vocabulary, but it displays beautiful fractal patterns. I've been lucky enough to meet a few of these bright birds. One liked to repeat entire phone conversations, or at least the half that he could hear. Not only did he go through the conversation with the usual formalities ("How are you? Oh, fine, fine." "Ok, talk to ya later!") he would include the sound of the phone, complete with rings and a click to end the call.

While I admire their beauty and eloquence, I am not much of an expert when it comes to parrots. So, rather than try to sound informative, I'll direct you to my SciBling, Shelley, who is an African gray owner, and blogs about the birds frequently. (I met Shelley a few months ago while she was in Denver; we spent quite a bit of time talking about birds. One of these days, I hope to meet her parrot, too.) Her regular parrot feature, Friday Gray Matters, has been on hiatus during her recent travels. Since she just returned to the States, I expect the bird blogging will resume shortly. Welcome home, Shelley!

Note: I'd like to give a special thanks to Martin Richard for sending me the feather photo. He has an excellent eye for emergent forms in nature. You can check out more of his work on his Flickr page. All fractals made by the author using ChaosPro

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Thanks for the mention Karmen, and way cool post on feathery fractals. Pepper is honored. :)

Karmen,

The fractal simulations in nature (as well as other designs with a mathematical essence) indicate something transcendental, don't they?

How is it that design is so rampant in the Universe, when there is no God or Intelligent Designer to account for it.

Baffling....(perhaps).

RR

Rich, personally, I find the aspects of the universe which lend to such harmonic convergence to be divine in their own right. The sacred universe designs itself. Perhaps I've become so comfortable with these forms, that I don't find them baffling so much as awe-inspiring.