Python Playground, 2nd Edition

1

The Koch Snowflake

We’ll start our Python adventures by figuring out how to draw an interesting shape called the Koch snowflake, invented by Swedish mathematician Helge von Koch in 1904. The Koch snowflake is a fractal—a type of figure that repeats itself as you zoom in to it.

Fractals derive their repeating nature from recursion, a technique where something is defined in terms of itself. In particular, you draw a fractal using a recursive algorithm, a repeating process where one repetition’s output becomes the input of the next repetition.

As you work through this chapter, you’ll learn:

• • The basics of recursive algorithms and functions ...