I'm not saying that fractals aren't mathematically (potentially) useful and interesting, but just playing with a fractal program for more than 5 minutes seems to me like a waste. Maybe my brain doesn't grasp the images in the way yours and Tony's do.

OTOH, they are pretty to look at as a screensaver, I suppose.

Edit: I'm being a jerk. Because they're pretty or they're cool is, of course, a perfectly good reason. Not that you need a reason. It's just that so many people seem so interested beyond what I can rationalize that I sometimes feel like I'm missing something obvious.