as small as a world and as large as alone

10:14pm August 5, 2013

visualizingmath:

Lichtenburg Figures and “Captured Lightning"

Lichtenberg figures are branching, tree-like or fern-like patterns that are created by high voltage discharges passing along the surface, or inside of, electrical insulating materials. The first Lichtenberg figures were actually 2-dimensional “dust figures" formed as dust in the air settled on the surface of electrically-charged plates of resin in the laboratory of their discoverer, German physicist  Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799). 

The branching patterns of a Lichtenberg figure look similar at various scales of magnification. This “self-similarity" strongly suggests that Lichtenberg figures might be mathematically described through a branch of mathematics called fractal geometry. Lichtenberg figures are naturally created by lightning strikes. For example, lightning strike victims often have a tattoo-like Lichtenberg figure on their bodies.

The images above are sculptures created by Stoneridge Engineering. Click here to read about how they are created!

#mathematics #fractal #geometry #science #lichtenberg figure

I’ve actually got one of these.

My dad was a technician at a research facility that had an accelerator. He had two of them. He gave one to me. They called them beam trees.

There was also a place selling them online and I bought one for a friend

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