Fractals Are a Glimpse of Primordial Freedom

Chapter 12.6: Constructal Law and Fractals

This is a free installment of The Freedom Scale: An Accurate Measure of Left and Right.

To learn more about how the rights of the individual human person are woven into the very fabric of the universe—and to understand why the connection between freedom and fractals matters—upgrade today:

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Previous installments here:

Why this book | Title Page | Table of Contents
Preface | Introduction
PART 1
Chapter 1 (1.1) (1.2) | Chapter 2 (2.1) (2.2) (2.3) | Chapter 3 (3.1) (3.2) (3.3) (3.4) (3.5) (3.6)
PART 2
Chapter 4 (4.1) (4.2) (4.3) (4.4) (4.5) | Chapter 5 (5.1) (5.2) (5.3) (5.4) (5.5) (5.6) (5.7) (5.8) (5.9)
Chapter 6 (6.1) (6.2) (6.3) (6.4) (6.5)
PART 3
Chapter 7 (7.1) (7.2) (7.3) (7.4) (7.5) (7.6) | Chapter 8 (8.1) (8.2) (8.3) (8.4) (8.5) | Chapter 9 (9.1) (9.2) (9.3) (9.4) (9.5) (9.6) (9.7) (9.8) Chapter 10 (10.1) (10.2) (10.3) (10.4) (10.5) | Chapter 11 (11.1) (11.2) (11.3) (11.4) Chapter 12 (12.1) (12.2) (12.3) (12.4) (12.5) (12.6)
Chapter 13 | Chapter 14
PART 4
Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 |
PART 5
Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Conclusion
Appendix | Works Cited

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• Category 1: Natural, cont’d

  • The Constructal Law

    • Sidebar: Constructal Law and Fractals

❝This is the fundamental characteristic behind the growth of all complex organisms. The same forms recur in many different circumstances, in different materials both organic and inorganic, on a vast range of scales. A small part of our circulatory system looks like the whole. It looks like a tree, like an estuary, like a stream-bed.

—Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon, Introducing Fractals: A Graphic Guide

A fractal is a simple pattern that repeats itself at different scales. No matter how far you zoom in on a fractal, the structure remains, repeating itself into infinity. Trees, leaves, lighting, blood vessels, and river networks are all examples of fractals. Sound familiar? The Constructal pattern is a kind of fractal pattern.

Plants grow in fractal patterns—arranging their seeds and leaves for maximum access to what they need (to sun, space, etc.) within a given area. Sound familiar?

Many of these patterns are governed by the Fibonacci sequence. Fibonacci produces the Golden Ratio, which appears throughout nature (and in human design, as it is said to give objects the most visually pleasing proportions). The Fibonacci pattern appears “in nanoparticles, black holes, spiral galaxies, flowers, human anatomy, DNA nucleotides,” and my wife’s favorite, seashells. In other words, it is found throughout the universe. Sound familiar?

I am not a mathematician, and I do not pretend to understand the deepest complexities of the universe. But something big is obviously going on here. When we add in the fact that many of these patterns appear to be “freedom-seeking” in one way or another, the picture expands further. Ultimately, we may discover that it is all part of a reality so grand that it is almost beyond comprehension. If you are not glimpsing at least a glimmer of that grandeur—if you are not experiencing a little thrill at the notion that freedom may, somehow, lie at the heart of everything—could it be because you don’t want to?

❝For most of my life, one of the persons most baffled by my own work was myself.

—Benoit Mandelbrot

“For a flow system to persist in time—which means to live—it must…be free to morph, to change, to evolve, so that it can move more freely, to gain access to what it needs.” —Adrian Bejan

The universe is made of freedom.