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Let $S$ be the set of positive integers whose base-three expansion contains only the digits 0 and 2. The discrete set $S$ in a sense has (negative) fractal dimension $(\log 1/2)/(\log 3)$, since if you dilate the set by a factor of 3 you get a set that's half as big (two translates of the dilated set tile the original set).

Meanwhile, the Cantor set (which can be constructed as the scaling limit of initial segments of $S$) has fractal dimension $(\log 2)/(\log 3)$, since if you dilate the set by a factor of 3 you get a set that's twice as big (two translates of the Cantor set tile the dilated Cantor set).

Lastly note that $(\log 1/2)/(\log 3) = - (\log 2)/(\log 3)$.

I'd ike to know where in the literature this sort of connection is spelled out in appropriate generality, with clear definitions of the different notions of fractal dimension that are involved, and theorems asserting numerical relationships between those quantities in a more general setting (applying for instance to the locations of the odd entries in Pascal's triangle and Sierpinski's gasket).

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Martin Barlow And S. James Taylor published a number of papers on this topic, for example:

  • Fractional dimension of sets in discrete spaces, Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General, Volume 22 (1989)
  • Defining fractal subsets of ${\mathbb Z}^d$, Proc. London Math. Soc. Volume 64 1992

The second is available online.

Both authors did plenty of important work studying the fractal properties of stochastic processes. Taylor proved the seminal result that brownian motion in $\mathbb R^d$ almost surely has dimension 2 when $d>1$. As such, they are primarily interested in definitions of fractal dimension that yield expected results when studying random walks on $\mathbb Z^d$.

The basic idea is to define the lattice cube $$V_n = \{x\in{\mathbb Z}^d: -n/2<x_i<n/2, \, \forall i\}.$$

The fractal dimension of a set $A\in\mathbb Z^d$ can then be defined by $$\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} \frac{\log(\#(A\cap V_n))}{\log(n)}.$$ A $\limsup$ or $\liminf$ can also be used to yield an upper or lower dimension. This looks quite a lot like box counting dimension and has many of the properties that you might expect. For example, you can estimate $\#(A\cap V_n)$ to within a constant multiple and still get the correct result since $$\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} \frac{\log(ca_n)}{\log(b_n)} = \lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} \frac{\log(c)+\log(a_n)}{\log(b_n)} = \lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} \frac{\log(a_n)}{\log(b_n)}.$$ Of course, you can do the same with $n$ which effectively allows us to compute the dimension using any sequence that doesn't go to $\infty$ faster than exponentially. This allows us to easily compute the dimension of your discrete Cantor set. To work in the non-negative integers, let's define $$V_n = {\mathbb Z}\cap[0,n]$$ and we'll define $S$ be the set of non-negative integers whose base-three expansion contains only the digits 0 and 2. (Note that I've included zero, which I think is a bit more natural, since the integer zero in $S$ corresponds to the left most point of the Cantor set.) Then, it's not hard to show that $$\#(S\cap V_{3^n}) = 2^n$$ so that $$\text{dim}(S) = \lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} \frac{\log(\#(S\cap V_{3^n}))}{\log(3^n)} = \frac{\log 2}{\log 3}.$$

Your Pascal/Sierpinski example can be computed in a similar manner. I guess the binomial coefficients mod 2 fit into grid like so:

enter image description here

Note that's $2^4$ rows with $3^4$ ones. In general, we have $2^n$ rows with $3^n$ ones so that the dimension works out to be $\log(3)/\log(2)$.

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  • $\begingroup$ The one dimensional case is in Polya and Szego vol. I. They call it the "convergence exponent" of a sequence. $\endgroup$ Feb 13, 2015 at 2:15
  • $\begingroup$ I'm interested in generalizing fractals. Do you know of a definition that contains both the discrete and continuous fractals? $\endgroup$ Feb 13, 2015 at 2:41
  • $\begingroup$ I found Mark McClure's answer very informative, but it did not address the issue of the equality between the fractal dimension (defined one way) of a discrete object and the fractal dimension (defined another way) of a continuous object, and the question, Under what hypotheses is this equality guaranteed to hold? $\endgroup$ Feb 13, 2015 at 19:10

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