Captured Lightning: Electrons Follow Fractals Through Insulators

Fractals, shapes that look similar to their parts no matter how much you zoom in, are everywhere from broccoli to seashells. Now, a new study of an old physics problem has found more: Electrons inside some conductive materials may be hopping around atoms in fractal patterns."What we finally found is a sort of a proof that this energy landscape looks funny," said co-author Brian Skinner, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge who studies the movement of electrons. P...