edited by T Vicsek (Eötvös University, Hungary) , M Shlesinger (Office of Naval Research, USA) , & M Matsushita (Chuo University, Japan)

In 1992 and 1994, Dr M Shlesinger was the 11th Michelson Lecturer at the US Naval Academy and the Regent's Lecturer at the University of California at San Diego, respectively. He currently serves as the North American Managing Editor of Fractals and an Advisory Board member of PhysioNet (www.physionet.org).
 

During the last couple of years, fractals have been shown to represent the common aspects of many complex processes occurring in an unusually diverse range of fields including biology, chemistry, earth sciences, physics and technology. Using fractal geometry as a language, it has become possible to get a deeper insight into previously intractable problems. Among many others, a better understanding of growth phenomena, turbulence, iteractive functions, colloidal aggregation, biological pattern formation and inhomogenous materials has emerged through the application of such concepts as scale invariance, self-affinity and multifractality.

This volume contains a selection of high quality papers that discuss the latest developments in the research of fractals. It is divided into 5 sections and contains altogether 64 papers. Each paper is written by a well known author or authors in the field. Beginning each section is a short introduction, written by a prominent author, which gives a brief overview of the topics discussed in the respective sections.

• A) Biology:
  • 1. Communication, Regulation and Control during Complex Patterning of Bacterial Colonies (E Ben-Jocob et al.)
  • 2. Fractal Landscapes in Biological Systems ( H E Stanley et al.)
  • 3. Self-Similar Colony Morphogenesis by Bacteria as the Experimental Model of Fractal Growth by a Cell Population (T Matsuyama et al.); etc.
• B) Chemistry:
  • 1. Fractal Description of Anomalous Diffusion in Dynamical Systems (J Klafter et al.)
  • 2. Reaction-Front Dynamics in A + B → C with Initially-Separated Reactants (S Havlin et al.)
  • 3. Corrosion Pattern Formation in Aluminium Thin Layers (L Balázs et al.) etc.
• C) Earth Sciences:
  • 1. Fractal Tectonics and Erosion (D L Turcotte)
  • 2. A Cascade Model of Wave Turbulence with Applications to Surface Gravity and Capillary Waves (R E Glazman)
  • 3. Power-Law Distribution of River Basin Sizes (H Takayasu) etc.
• D) Methods:
  • 1. Beyond Classical Multifractal Analysis Using Wavelets: Uncovering a Multiplicative Process Hidden in the Geometrical Complexity of Diffusion Limited Aggregates (A Arneodo et al.)
  • 2. The Fixed Scale Transformation: Status and Perspectives (L Pietronero)
  • 3. Entropic and Multifractal Analysis of Disordered Morphologies (A Beghdadi et al.) etc.
• E) Physics:
  • 1. Large Scale Structure of Interfaces: An Inverse Method (C-H Lam & L M Sander)
  • 2. The Morphology and Evolution of the Surface in Epitaxial and Thin Film Growth: A Continuum Model with Surface Diffusion (F Family & J Amar)
  • 3. Granular Cocktail Rotated and Shaken (G Baumann et al.) etc