We present a new technique to determine the fractal or self-similarity dimension of a
sequence of curves. The geometric characterization of the sequence is obtained from
the mechanical properties of harmonic oscillators with the same shape of the terms
composing the given sequence of curves. The definition of “dynamical dimension” is
briefly introduced with the help of simple examples. The theory is proved to be valid
for a particular type of curves as those of the Koch family. The method is applied to
more complex plane curves obtained by superposing two generators of the Koch
family with different fractal dimensions. It is shown that this structure is
composed by two series of objects one of which is fractal and the other which is
not rigorously a fractal sequence but approaches asymptotically a fractal
object. The notion of quasifractal structures is introduced. The results are
shown to provide good information about the structure formation. It is shown
that the dynamical dimension can identify randomness for certain fractal
curves.
Keywords
fractals, mixed fractals, dynamical dimension, random
fractals