Lori Gardi is a computer scientist working in the field of medical imaging. She also considers herself a fractal cosmologist. Her independent research into the fractal nature of the universe has led her to a novel black hole theory that differs from the standard model of black holes. Her discovery of the “black hole” nature of the Mandelbrot set may lead to a new way of understanding the black holes; not the mathematical (relativistic) black holes of the standard model, but the actual black holes that nature makes. If her hypothesis proves true, then relativity cannot be the correct model for black holes.

If the universe is fractal in nature at all knowable scales, then, Lori argues, there must be a mathematical fractal that describes how this works. Lori Gardi has been studying the Mandelbrot Set since 1985 and she believes that this fractal is the key to understanding and describing how nature works. In particular, this fractal geometry explains how black holes can exist at many, drastically different scales. Lori argues that the black holes that nature makes must have the property of self-similarity. If black holes have the property of self-similarity, then this should not exclude the atomic and quantum scales. In this manner, there is nothing preventing the atom from being a quasi-black hole.

Early this year (2017), the Event Horizon Telescope was used to capture a high resolution images of the black hole at the center of our galaxy (The Milky Way). It also took pictures of a nearby active galaxy called Messier-87 (M-87). These pictures, to be released late 2017 or early 2018, are expected to be of good enough resolution to confirm general relativity, yet again. Lori Gardi hopes that the images disprove relativity by vindicating her theory. M-87 is already showing signs that it is a quasi-black hole as described in her recent paper, “The Mandelbrot Set as a Quasi-Black Hole”, presented at the 2017 CNPS conference.

Gardi also proposes a novel way to unify cosmology, not by unifying forces, but by unifying scales. Instead of unifying forces that appear at different scales, such as gravity and electromagnetism, we should be “calibrating” the relationships at one scale, and applying that to all scales. “In order to unify physics and cosmology, we need to scale the laws of physics.”, says Gardi. This paradigm shifting line of thinking could revolutionize physics. “Only by fully appreciating the self-similar, fractal, nature of the universe, will be able to make any progress in unification and simplification of the underlying physics.”, says Lori Gardi, a.k.a. FractalWoman.

Papers on this subject:

The Mandelbrot Set as a Quasi-Black Hole

The Mandelbrot Set and the Fractal Nature of Light, the Universe, and Everything