I don’t recall exactly what I was doing, but recently I happened across a stunning image of a fractal that all but stopped me in my tracks. I know that’s  a weird thing to be stopped in your tracks by, I mean it wasn’t an elephant or martian or movie star or anything similar, but it was something to see. Even more so once I made it the wallpaper on my Mac.

Is that a desktop or what?

Fractals, if you missed the outstanding link above, are simply repeating patterns (such as ever-repeating triangles) that make an overall shape, so if you zoomed in to the image over and over again you’d keep seeing the same smaller patterns that you saw in the larger. To put it another way, as the linked page stated, if you section a fractal, you’ll simply have smaller versions of the larger image. The resulting patterns tend to be slightly irregular as the repeating pattern doesn’t have to be exact, and they are seen everywhere in nature. They relate to us because they are mathematically significant and have been the stuff of computer artists for decades. I’ve put some examples below, one a mathematical representation known as the Koch snowflake as well as a couple of fractals from the natural world:

The Koch snowflake

If you have heard of a ‘Mandelbrot set,’ that is a specific type of fractal that is strictly a mathematical operation involving calculating values approaching infinity, is not found in nature, and is often visualized as something similar to the below image, which you can see has the same repeating-pattern characteristics of regular fractals:

Mandelbrot set

So as I was marveling at that original fractal, I decided to find a few others as well. I went to my go-to source for images, Wallbase, and found some that are quite amazing.

(UPDATE: I have recently learned that the person who ran Wallbase disappeared over a year ago and hasn’t been heard from since, and it is no longer possible to add new images because of that, meaning the site hasn’t been updated in over a year. Sure enough, the last uploaded image is over a year old, so if you’re looking for beautiful images or desktop wallpaper I have other recommendations that have taken up the mantle: Wallhaven, The Paper Wall, and 4walled).

I’ve put all the fractals in the gallery below. All of them are spectacular, some may hurt your eyes, and hopefully you’ll find at least one in there that resonates with you.

One thing to keep in mind: these images are HUGE, so there will be a slight delay when you click to the next one. You can right-click on the center any of image (your cursor will turn into an arrow as opposed to the finger used for navigation), select ‘Save Image As’ from the menu that pops up, and the image will save at its full resolution. So if you see one or many you like, download away!