What do you call geometric patterns like this?

Question

What do you call geometric patterns like this ?

Well, I'd call it "spiral", but it seems to be a special kind of spiral. Looks kinda like a square root spiral. — ljfa, Jul 22 '14 at 07:15
I found this https://www.sciencenews.org/article/art-pursuit-3 — Shabbeh, Jul 22 '14 at 07:24

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 22 '14 at 07:26

6

This is an illustration for the Mice Problem

answered Jul 22 '14 at 07:26

1

Wouldn't be Whirl be the more appropriate reference here? It's one link away from Mice Problem – MvG Jul 23 '14 at 11:29

MvG · Answer 2 · 2014-07-23T11:27:19.720

I'd call this a self-similar logarithmic spiral which is the image of a square under an iterated similarity transformation.

There is a similarity transformation which maps the corners of the outermost square to those of the second-to-largest one, and iterating that transformation will yield an infinite sequence of squares converging to the center. The spiral arms are formed by the corner points of these squares and the outermost bit of edge, while most of the edges contribute to the hatching of the spiral parts. In my own rendering, created with Cinderella, there is even some Moiré effect visible near the center.

What do you call geometric patterns like this?

2 Answers2