Fractal Images from Multiple Inversion in Circles
Peter Stampfli

Proceedings of Bridges 2019: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture
Pages 263–270
Regular Papers

Abstract

Images resulting from multiple inversion and reflection in intersecting circles and straight lines are presented. Three circles and lines making a triangle give the well-known tilings of spherical, Euclidean or hyperbolic spaces. Four circles and lines can form a quadrilateral or a triangle with a circle around its center. Quadrilaterals give tilings of hyperbolic space or fractal tilings with a limit set that resembles generalized Koch snowflakes. A triangle with a circle results in a Poincaré disc representation of tiled hyperbolic space with a fractal covering made of small Poincaré disc representations of tiled hyperbolic space. An example is the Apollonian gasket. Other such tilings can simultaneously be decorations of hyperbolic, elliptic and Euclidean space. I am discussing an example, which is a self-similar decoration of both a sphere with icosahedral symmetry and a tiled hyperbolic space. You can create your own images and explore their geometries using public browser apps.

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