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Science 15 January 1993:
Vol. 259. no. 5093, pp. 335 - 339
DOI: 10.1126/science.259.5093.335
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Articles

Particles Floating on a Moving Fluid: A Dynamically Comprehensible Physical Fractal

John C. Sommerer 1 and Edward Ott 2

1 M. S. Eisenhower Research Center, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland 20723
2 Departments of Electrical Engineering and Physics, The University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742

Measurements of the local dynamics on the surface of a fluid undergoing complicated motion allow prediction of the measured fractal dimension of an aggregate of passive, floating tracers. This realization of a strange attractor in physical space is a rare instance where there is a firm quantitative connection between the dimension of an experimentally observed fractal spatial pattern and the process producing it.

Submitted on September 17, 1992
Accepted on December 15, 1992

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)