My Mom’s a physics nerd too. Here is a turtle she painted for the University of Maryland Fear the Turtle Sculpture Project.
It is covered in patterns derived from the research performed by the University’s Chaos Group. Check out their chaos image gallery to see the sources of her inspiration.
The group has posted a Java applet that let’s you zoom in on a fractal pattern so that you can get a feel for self similar patterns that are often associated with chaos.