Fractal geometry is a field of math born in the 1970s and mainly developed by Benoit Mandelbrot. If you’ve already heard of fractals, you’ve probably seen the picture above.

Fractals are known as geometric shapes that display similarity through the full range of scale—that is, they look the same no matter how big or how small they are.

The latter features spirals made of small conical pyramids called florets, each resembling the overall conical shape of the whole vegetable. Each of these florets is also composed of spiral ...

We also see fractal branches in crystals, the shapes of snowflakes, even strange mineral deposits people sometimes mistake for ancient plant fossils. Similar fractals, but a different reason.

“Perhaps there might actually be more of these complex, fractal-like shapes around in nature, just because people haven’t really looked for them,” says Ard Louis at the University of Oxford.

These are called fractals and are based on the mathematical concept with the same name for complex shapes that, when we look at their ever-smaller parts, we see similarities with the larger whole.