If you think mathematics ricochets between the ancient and the mystical, never halting at the useful or comprehensible, if you think half of math was perfected by Euclid and Newton, and the other half can't be comprehended without a Ph.D., meet fractals.
Fractals generally start simple enough, but they can get hideously complicated.
But it turns out that fractals are an excellent tool for math teachers. At least that's the opinion of fractal fan Cynthia Lanius , a math teacher at Milby High School, Houston, Texas. For one thing, she says, fractals make the shapes seen in nature. For another, they are a field of modern math research that students can grasp. Kids think that all mathematics was learned 500 years ago, that math is a dead study like Latin is a 'dead' language.