I can't see any connection between restaurant quality and the particular properties of fractals.
I mean, fractal properties appear in a situation such as when one section of the coast of England resembles (statistically) another section of the coast of England. I don't see the comfortable chair of a restaurant resembling the thick napkin or the delicious steak of the restaurant in such a fashion. They're just all product of a single, conscious plan - something fractals generally are not.
It's shame people know so little about mathematical process that "fractal" is the only analogy that's become popular enough to use. If people had a larger pallet of terms, they could perhaps use them more correctly. Restaurant quality and overall quality is like a dynamic, feedback system. If only the author had known...
One of the defining characteristics of fractals is that they are self similar, meaning that a small part is similar to a larger part, or to the whole. The authors argument is that there is a self similarity in the quality of restaurants, by looking at a small part (in this case the napkin) you can with a some certainty say what a larger part is like. Fractals don't have to be geometric patterns, in this case it's the quality that's self-similar. Fractals aren't pictures, they're a mathematical concept. In this case I think the analogy is a good one.
They're also non-Euclidean geometric shapes. So calling it fractal is ambiguous at best and requires you extract one element that makes a fractal. While there are times writing in such a way can be helpful, this is not one of those times. Instead, "Quality is consistent across levels" or even "Organizational quality is self-similar".
I didn't think fractals had to be geometric shapes, but Wikipedia seems to agree with you, so I stand corrected. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal)
Uh as you admit below, your argument here is mistaken.
Fractals are geometric patterns only. The restaurants are not "self-similar" in any geometric or fractal sense - the napkins don't particularly resemble the steaks. The only thing a good restaurant has a consistent quality. They don't resemble fractals any more than steaks resemble chairs and napkins.
With a reasonably defined quality space, what the article is saying is that the measure in any quality dimension is likely to correlate highly with that in any other: i.e. the measures are self-similar.
Way to be overly literal and pedantic, captain bring down.
The use of the term "fractal" here is in reference to "quality" not, say, appearance. And that use of the term (specifically meaning: self-similar at many different levels of scale) is meaningful, accurate, and helps clarify the point being made, which is the highest purpose of language.
I can't see any connection between restaurant quality and the particular properties of fractals.
I mean, fractal properties appear in a situation such as when one section of the coast of England resembles (statistically) another section of the coast of England. I don't see the comfortable chair of a restaurant resembling the thick napkin or the delicious steak of the restaurant in such a fashion. They're just all product of a single, conscious plan - something fractals generally are not.
It's shame people know so little about mathematical process that "fractal" is the only analogy that's become popular enough to use. If people had a larger pallet of terms, they could perhaps use them more correctly. Restaurant quality and overall quality is like a dynamic, feedback system. If only the author had known...