In the last few day , social medium usershave been sharing and staring at an extremely well - made gif that has been described as both a brainiac melodic theme and the most annoying thing on the Internet . The alive image shows the aerial view of a coastline as the camera tardily moves in . The clipping seems to go on for ages , continue to soar up in , but really it is just two seconds farsighted . We all got fooled by the power of fractals and the coastline paradox .
The paradox states that the coastline of an island does n’t have a well - defined length . This might seem counterintuitive but it is correct . The measurement of the length of a coastline calculate specifically on the units used to measure it .
A standard example of thisparadoxis the mensuration of the British coastline . In units of 100 klick ( 62 miles ) , the independent British islet is 2,800 kilometers ( or about 1,700 international nautical mile ) . But if we half our “ rule ” to just 50 klick ( 31 miles ) , then Great Britain profit about 600 kilometers ( 373 statute mile ) more of coastline , reaching a sum of 3,400 kilometers ( or about 2,100 mile ) .
So what gives ? Well , the issue is that we are trying to mensurate the coastline like it was a square or an octagon , but that can not go . A coastline is well gauge by afractal , a exceptional geometric breaking ball whose complexity changes with the mensuration plate . Depending on your unit , the full length might change wildly .
The condition fractal was coined by Benoit B. Mandelbrot ( and no , the B in his name does n’t stand for Benoit B. Mandelbrot ) , and he was instrumental in the discussion of the coastline paradox .
There are many character of fractals with slightly different characteristic , but the one that matters in this gif the most is self - law of similarity . The patterns in such fractals are identical at all scales , which means if you zoom in on any part of the figure , you will see the same social structure repeated over and over again .
Although fractals are designed to mime natural objects , such as the coastline or even Romanesco broccoli , humans do n’t easily descry the ego - similar convention . This means you’re able to overwork this to create a genuinely maddening gif .
