Nature's statistical symmetries, a characterization by wavelets.
Anthony B. Davis · OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 2001
Wavelets are the mathematical equivalent of a microscope, a means of looking at more or less detail in data. By applying wavelet transforms to remote sensing data (satellite images, atmospheric profiles, etc.), we can discover symmetries in Nature's ways of changing in lime and displaying a highly variable environment at any given time. These symmetries are not exact but statistical. The most intriguing one is 'scale-invariance' which describes how spatial statistics collected over a wide range of scales (using wave1m)follow simple power laws with respect to the scale parameter. The geometrical counterparts of statistical scale-invariance are the random fractals so often observed in Nature. This wavelet-based exploration of natural symmetry will be illustrated with clouds,