Richard Taylor: Physics and The Art of Fractal Fluency In Nature

Episode # 18 Today it is my pleasure to introduce to you Richard Taylor, Professor,  Physics Department Head at University of Oregon. His interests are: Nanoelectronics, retinal implants, solar cells, and the visual science of fractals.  Richard Taylor specializes in experimental condensed matter and biophysics. He is the Director of Fractals Research and head of the Fractals Research Laboratory at the University of Oregon.

 For a complete transcript of this episode please visit treesmendus.com 

Richard Taylor regularly gives lectures around the world, invited by organizations as diverse as the Nobel Foundation, the White House, the Royal Society and national art galleries such as the Pompidou Centre and the Guggenheim Museum.

Welcome Richard Taylor. 

1)   Richard Taylor would you please start by telling us your story in the arts and sciences?

It is a long and winding story. For me all my passions started when I was a little 9 year old I started to get enthralled with the patterns in nature. They look very messy, whether you are looking at a cloud, tree or a mountain. But there is something very appealing about them as well. We all know that we love nature, but for me as a little kid is was: “why is it exactly that we love nature so much?” 

That took in a long winding process for me that took in physics, psychology, and arts. All my career has been based on this, and trying to understand that when we say nature has got a pattern, what exactly do we mean by that?  

2)   What are fractals? 

It’s a weird name for something that is very simple. So a fractal pattern, is simply a pattern that repeats at different sized scales. Although it is simple, nature uses it a lot. Examples of fractals are clouds in the sky, trees, and mountains. So it you take for example a tree and stand a long way from it, you will see a sort of rough pattern created by the trunk and the branches coming off. And if you walk closer, and zoom in on one of those branches, you’ll see that smaller branches come off those larger branches. And then look closely at those smaller branches, and you’ll see that twigs come off those smaller branches. So patterns are repeating at different magnifications as you look closer and closer to the tree. And that is all that a fractal is: a pattern that repeats at different magnifications. 

3)   How do fractals fit with stress? 

So although it is a simple idea, like a say nature uses it a lot – so clouds, mountains, rivers, coastlines, even lightening, are all fractal. I have been working with psychologists and we have been investigating what is the impact on you when you look at these fractal patterns. For millions of years, we have been absolutely surrounded by fractals so it is not surprising that our human eye has evolved to accommodate them.  We have got this model that we call “fractal fluency” and what it purposes is that your eye has become fluent in the visual language of fractals. In other words, our eyes have actually evolved to look at these patterns. S

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