With the help of computers, simple geometric iterations can be applied thousands of times at different scales to produce so-called fractal forgeries--computer-generated models of plants, trees, mountains, coastlines, and so on that bear an astonishing resemblance to the actual shapes found in nature. Figure 6- 15 shows an example of such a fractal forgery. By iterating a simple stick draw ing at various scales, the beautiful and complex picture of a fern is generated.