Fractal Geometry
Organizations face identical distribution challenges: delivering information, capital, goods, and decisions from leadership to all employees across scales.
Fractal geometry is nature's answer to the resource distribution problem: how to deliver resources from a central source to all tissues, efficiently, across orders of magnitude in spatial scale.
Fractals are self-similar structures that look statistically similar at different scales of magnification. Mandelbrot coined the term fractal (from Latin fractus, 'broken') to describe these objects and introduced fractal dimension: a measure of how completely a fractal fills space, which can be non-integer. Fractals are nature's solution to resource distribution problems - organisms need to deliver nutrients, oxygen, and signals from central sources to all tissues, spanning orders of magnitude in spatial scale. The solution is fractal branching networks that hierarchically subdivide, reaching all tissues with minimal infrastructure.
Business Application of Fractal Geometry
Organizations face identical distribution challenges: delivering information, capital, goods, and decisions from leadership to all employees across scales. Organizational fractals (corporate hierarchies, distribution networks, franchise systems) solve these problems through hierarchical branching that scales efficiently.
Discovery
Benoit Mandelbrot (1967)
Recognized that abstract mathematical constructions like Koch snowflake described real natural structures including coastlines, mountains, and biological branching systems