The Sierpinski Triangle – Fractals – Mathigon - Stephen Wolfram  ## Metadata - Author: **Stephen Wolfram** - Full Title: The Sierpinski Triangle – Fractals – Mathigon - Category: #articles - URL: https://mathigon.org/course/fractals/sierpinski#:~:text=The%20Sierpinski%20triangle%20is%20a,1969)%20was%20a%20Polish%20mathematician. ## Highlights - One of the fractals we saw in the previous chapter was the Sierpinski triangle The Sierpinski triangle is a self-similar fractal. It consists of an equilateral triangle, with smaller equilateral triangles recursively removed from its remaining area. , which is named after the Polish mathematician Wacław Sierpiński Wacław Franciszek Sierpiński (1882 – 1969) was a Polish mathematician. He made important discoveries in set theory, number theory, analysis and topologies, publishing over 700 papers and 50 books. He also invented many popular fractals, including the Sierpinski triangle, the Sierpinski carpet and the Sierpinski curve. Sierpinski numbers are odd natural numbers k such that k·2n+1 is composite for all natural numbers n. The Sierpinski problem is trying to find the smallest Sierpinski numbers. The smallest known such number is 78,557 – but it is still unknown whether there are smaller ones. . It can be created by starting with one large, equilateral triangle, and then repeatedly cutting smaller triangles out of its center.