742: fracture, fraction, and fractal Dec 19, 2016

hat does fracking have to do with fractals?––Generally very little in terms of their mechanics, but as you may now be guessing, they are etymologically related. 'Frack' is just an abbreviation started in the 1950's of 'fracture', but in addition to 'fractal', 'fraction is related. All of these words come from the Latin participle of 'frangere' which means, 'to break', 'fractura', but while 'frack' took the meaning of breaking into pieces, the two aforesaid mathematical terms use a meaning closer to reduction.