The Koch Snowflake

Patterns in a von Koch snowflake The purpose of this exercise is to investigate the relationship between the stages of the snowflake and its perimeter and areas.

I will first count the number of sides, Nn, at each stage manually and then try to establish a relationship between them. Initially ln, the length of each side is taken to be one unit, but at each stage, the side will be divided into three equal parts, of which the middle one will be the base for another triangle. As a result, the length of each side at every stage will be one-third of the length of side at the previous stage. That being said, the length of each side can be represented by the formula ln = l0 ( units.

)n

The length of the perimeter, Pn, will be the product of the length of each side and the number of sides. The formula for this will be Pn =

Nn ln. We can substitute ln = ( )n as found Nn ( )n units.

above into this equation. As a result, the new equation will be Pn =

I will calculate the area of the triangles by using the formula

absinC. As the Koch

snowflake consists of equilateral triangles, both sides a and b will be equal to Ln and C = 60o, the formula for the area of each of the additional triangles will be

(ln )2 sin 60o. Simplifying it

further, and replacing ln by ( )n . So for the nth stage of the snowflake, the area for each triangle would be

2n

sq units.

The first calculated area, at stage 0 will be

=>

unit2. I will calculate the total

area of the snowflake, An, by calculating the sum of the areas of each of the additional triangles and adding it to the area calculated for at the previous stage.

For the nth stage, the number of sides (Nn), the length of a single side (ln), the length of the perimeter (Pn), and the area of the snowflake (An) is shown in the table below (Figure 1)

Nn n=0 n=1 n=2 n=3 3 12 48 192

Ln 1

Pn 3 4

An

Figure 1

250

200

150 Number of sides 100

50

0 0 1 2 Stage (n) 3 4

As we can see in the table above and the graph on the left, the number of sides increases by four times at each stage, that is, every time n increases by one, the number of sides of the snowflake increases by four times. So, it can be said that the number of sides is a series in geometric
n

progression for which the first term is 3 and the common ratio is 4. So, Nn = 3(4) . The next step is to find out if this generalisation is true. This can be done by substituting n= 0, n= 1, n= 2, and n= 3 into the equation we just found. N0 = 3(4)0 = 3( 1) = 3

Number of Sides

N1 = 3(4)1 = 3(4) = 12 N2 = 3(4)2 = 3(16) = 48 N3 = 3(4)3 = 3(64) = 192 The above values, calculated using the formula Nn = 3(4)n, adhere to the values that I found manually. The relationship between the terms for ln has already been established but is shown more clearly by the graph below. It is a geometric series with the ratio and first term 1. As l0 = 1,the length of each side can be represented as ln
1.2 1 Length of each side (units) 0.8 0.6 Length of each side 0.4 0.2 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 Stage (n)

= ( )n.

To find out if the generalisation, ln = ( )n, is true for all cases, the values n= 0l, 1, 2, and 3 are substituted as below. l0 = ( )0 = 1 l1 = ( )1 = ( ) l2 = ( )2 = ( ) l3 = ( )3 = ( ) Again, the generalisation is valid as it applies to all the values found in the table.

The graph for the perimeters of the figure at each stage is shown on the graph on the right. As we have found the expression for Nn, we can substitute Nn = 3(4)n into the equation Pn = Nn ( )n . The new equation will be :
Perimeter (units)

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 1 2 Stage (n) 3 4 Perimeter

Pn = 3(4) ( )

which can be further simplified to form the equation:

Pn = 3( )n.
This can be verified by substituting n= 0, 1, 2 and 3. P0 = 3( )0 = 3(1) = 3 P2 = 3( )2 = 3( ) = P1 = 3( )1 = 3( =4

P3 = 3( )3=3( )=

The generalisation applies consistently to the values in the table.

0.8 0.7 0.6 Area (sq units) 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 1 2 Stage (n) 3 4 Area (sq units)

The graph on the left shows the graph of the area of the figure against the value of n. According to the graph, the area decreases significantly.

The increase in the number of triangles is equal to the number of sides of the figure at the

previous stages. Following this procedure,

An =

To test if this generalisation holds true, I will substitute n with 0, 1, 2 and 3 like I have done in the steps above. A0 = A1 = A2 = A3 =

= +

( )

The generalisation has been proven correct. This can now be manipulated to formulate a general formula that does not involve all this calculation and is more convenient. I shall start with the first formula for calculation the area, before it was simplified to achieve the one I just verified.

An =

The first thing I will do is separate the area at A0 from the area at the rest of the stages as this is the area that I am adding the rest of the areas to. The formula would now look like this:

An =

The next thing I will do is combine the two ratios, and 4. As the power to which 4 is raised is one less than the power to which is raised, I will multiply both the numerator and denominator by 4. The equation would look like:

An =

The series in the bracket would be one geometric series with first term simplification, would become . The common ratio for this series will be progression series, Sn = a( Sn =

which, upon

The sum of the terms in

the series can be calculated using the general formula for sum to nth term for a geometric ), where a is the first term and r is the common ratio. In this case,

).

The new equation would be as shown below:

An =

+ Sn

so, An =

).

To verify that this generalisation holds true for all values of n, I will substitute n= 0, n=1, n=2, n=3 into the above equation and compare it with the values in the table. A0 =

)=

A1 =

)=

( )

A2 =

)=

( )

A3 =

)=

The values obtained by using this formula are the same as the values in the table. This shows that the formula An =

) is true for all values of n.

Nn Nn = 3(4)n

ln ln = ( )n

Pn Pn = 3( )n

An An =

As the generalisations apply consistently to the sets of values produced in the table, the number of sides, length of each side, perimeter and area of the snowflake for stage 4 can be found by substituting n= 4 into their respective formulae. Number of sides: N4 = 3(4)4 = 3(256) = 768 sides Length of each side: l4 = ( )4 = Perimeter: P4 = 3( )4 = 3( Area of snowflake: A4 =

units units

)=

units

A side of the original triangle at Stage 0, would look like the following after 4 iterations:

units units

units

1 unit

In the image on the previous page shows one side of the original triangle which we started with at n=0. The number of sides in this closed figure can be manually counted. For convenience, I will divide this side (which is one third of the actual snowflake) into four equal parts, one of which is enclosed in the green box as shown on the diagram. I will count the number of sides in this box and multiply it by 4 to find the number of sides in the part of the snowflake that it shown in the diagram. Finally, I will multiply the result by 3 to find the number of sides in the entire closed figure. Number of counted sides (in the green box), Number of sides in the diagram, = 64

= 644 = 256

Number of sides in the snowflake when n=4, N4= 768 As this value is same as the one found using the conjectures found earlier, the prediction can be verified. I have marked the lengths of the sides for the fractal at stages 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4. At stage 4, the length of each side is units, the same as the calculated value.

As the perimeter, P4, is the product of N4 and l4, which are the same in both cases, the value calculated using this diagram will be the same as the one calculated using the conjecture found earlier. There will be 192 new equilateral triangles with side units. I will calculate the sum of the areas of

all these triangles and add it to the value of A3 to get the value for A4. The value calculated in this step should be the same as the value calculated using the generalisation earlier. I will calculate the area of each small triangle using the semi-perimeter formula, which is Area = where s is the semi-perimeter and a, b and c are the sides of the triangle. Since the triangle in hand is an equilateral triangle, a=b=c, so I will let a = side of triangle. The modified formula would be area = S= Area = (

) =

Total area of triangles = 192( A4 =

Both values of A4 are the same.

To find the values of n for which An is equal to An+1, I will substitute values, n=5, 6, 7, 8, , n as well as the five values that I have already found. I will make a table with values of n, Nn, ln, Pn and An. I will no longer use exact values but take my answers to seven decimal places, as the answer needs to be given in 6 decimal places. n 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Nn 3 12 48 192 768 3072 12288 49152 196608 786432 3145728 12582912 50331648 201326592 805306368 3221225472 12884901890 Table 4 ln 1 Pn 3 4 5.3333333 7.1111111 9.4814815 12.6419753 16.8559671 22.4746228 29.9661637 39.9548849 53.2731799 71.0309065 94.7078754 126.2771672 168.3695562 224.4927416 299.3236556 An 0.4330127 0.5773503 0.6415003 0.6700114 0.6826830 0.6883149 0.6908179 0.6919304 0.6924248 0.6926445 0.6927422 0.6927856 0.6928049 0.6798135 0.6928173 0.6928190 0.6928197

As we can see from the table above, the perimeter is increasing at the constantly in the ratio for every increase by one in the value of n. As this is a series following geometric progression and its ratio is greater than 1, the perimeter is expected to be very large. It will be close to infinity as

As can be seen in the table above, at n= 15, to six decimal places. In the table we can see the pattern An follows. It increases at a decreasing rate and after several values of n , seems as if it is constant. This is because as n becomes greater, the area of the small triangles after that many iterations becomes too small to make a significant difference to the total area of the

snowflake. The area at infinity will be very close to the area of the snowflake at n= 15 or n=16. This can be verified by the formula :

The area at infinity will be:

= 0.692820