Researchers have found a fractal pattern underlying everyday math. In the process, they’ve discovered a way to calculate partition numbers, a challenge that’s stymied mathematicians for centuries.

Jackson Pollock couldn’t possibly have been thinking of fractals when he started flinging and dripping paint from a stick onto canvas. After all, mathematicians didn’t develop the idea of a fractal ...

As Sigmund Freud made very clear, human beings are compelled to repeat patterns—the repetition compulsion. Patterns laid down early in life are propelled forward to recreate the familiar that can be ...