How are fractals related to the Chaos Theory?

Answer 1

"Chaos theory" seems to be one of those misnomers that smell much more of Greek paganism than rational physics. It is safe to say that "chaos theory" was the last thing that Johannes Kepler needed in order to simplify astronomy for high-school students.

Chaos theory (in my opinion) is more appropriately called a theory of equilibrium. The "order in chaos" comes out of some interference pattern that bring an impressive amount of determinism to seemingly disorderly systems. Fractals stand for series of re-iterated operations that approach the equilibria of chaos theory.

Perhaps the universe still does, in a sense, have a mind of its own - but that would not make it any less rational. If anything, having a mind of its own would probably make it morerational.

If you would like to see physics that possibly smells a lot more like Kepler, Newton, and Occam, I recommend the physics site that I have been developing - along with one other site that gave me my inspiration. I especially recommend the papers where I cover fractals.

I say all these things as a theoretician who really believes he has answers - but must bypass standard explanations.