THE BEACH MONODENTRI

(From INTEPENDENT)

Back away, hardbodies and musclemen: the seashore's a geek paradise. Here are the non-linear equations of catastrophe theory, in the breaking waves; here's turbulent flow, one of the last frontiers of mathematical modelling. Here are countless Fibonacci series, the one where each new number is the sum of the two preceding ones: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13, expressing itself in shells, pine cones and flower petals.

Most of all, the beach is the home of fractals: patterns which repeat themselves at smaller and smaller (or larger and larger) scales. The coastline on a map; a bay or a cove on a larger-scale map; a fraction of the shoreline seen close-up. All show the same pattern, at different sizes...............