Fractal Sturgeons

The living sturgeons that gave their name to the bay that divides the Door county peninsula — and the city that straddles it — have been nearly wiped out by overfishing and pollution. But their ghosts now haunt the summer streets.

Ten years ago the first “Sturgeons Around the Bay” brought out interesting variations on the fishy form by local artists. This year they are back. I took a walk a couple of days ago and found two within a few blocks of my home. Both of them made me think of my large accumulation of fractal images. So I went digging into the seven years or so of Fractal Explorer archives for matching pics. Some of the collection is on CDs, but I found enough of what I was looking for on my current hard drive.

The mandala-like fractal forms that I dug up are a little disappointing in these small images. You really have to see the whole array of mind-boggling patterns of which they are a part. But then you would end up sitting at your computer, diving into fractals for hours, like I do.

The point is, I suppose, that art does not originate in our thpughts. It is, in some way, mathematically hard-coded in our cells. Everything is fractal.