Benoît Mandelbrot, Novel Mathematician, Dies at 85

New York Times ^ | October 17, 2010

[La Lydia]

Benoît B. Mandelbrot, a maverick mathematician who developed an innovative theory of roughness and applied it to physics, biology, finance and many other fields, died Thursday in Cambridge, Mass. He was 85...Dr. Mandelbrot coined the term “fractal” to refer to a new class of mathematical shapes whose uneven contours could mimic the irregularities found in nature...In a seminal 1982 book, “The Fractal Geometry of Nature,” Dr. Mandelbrot defended mathematical objects that he said others had dismissed as “monstrous” and “pathological.” Using fractal geometry, he argued, the complex outlines of clouds and coastlines, once considered unmeasurable, could now “be approached in rigorous and vigorous quantitative fashion.”

...Dr. Mandelbrot had a reputation as an outsider to the mathematical establishment. From his perch as a researcher for I.B.M. in New York, where he worked for decades before accepting a position at Yale, he noticed patterns that other researchers may have overlooked in their own data...

Dr. Mandelbrot traced his work on fractals to a question he first encountered as a young researcher: how long is the coast of Britain? The answer, he was surprised to discover, depends on how closely one looks. On a map an island may appear smooth, but zooming in will reveal jagged edges that add up to a longer coast. Zooming in further will reveal even more coastline....

In the 1950s, (he) proposed a simple but radical way to quantify the crookedness of such an object by assigning it a “fractal dimension,” an insight that has proved useful well beyond the field of cartography.

Over nearly seven decades, working with dozens of scientists, Dr. Mandelbrot contributed to the fields of geology, medicine, cosmology and engineering. He used the geometry of fractals to explain how galaxies cluster....and how mammalian brains fold as they grow, among other phenomena....

[La Lydia]

One of the geniuses of our age.

[Slings and Arrows]

Nobody knows the exact shape of his grave, but there is a algorithm to compute whether a given point is contained in it or not.

[Slings and Arrows]

Nobody knows the exact shape of his grave, but there is an algorithm to compute whether a given point is contained in it or not.

[martin_fierro]

[La Lydia]

Aren’t they lovely?

[notfornothing]

Here's a fun little video if you want a quick musical introduction to his amazing work. RIP Mr. Mandelbrot.

[KosmicKitty]

Wrote a program years ago to draw his fractals. The are a thing of beauty.

[woodchukwood]

Song about Benoit:
Second song from the botton of this page (listen free)
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/store/downloads/

[MHGinTN]

There used to be a beautiful Youtube video where fractals were drawn to the accompaniment of wonderful Vivaldi oboe music. Somehow, those seemed to be perfectly matched.

[notfornothing]

See post 6.:)

[cgbg]

RIP to a great man—we need more of them.

[woodchukwood]

Yes, but this link is to the acoustic version of the song. I prefer it to the grunge guitar version as the lyrics are more intelligible.

acoustic version is second song from bottom
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/store/downloads/

[the invisib1e hand]

One of the geniuses of our age.

Well, if the measure of genius has something to do with how people misunderstand and misuse your work, yeah, he's up there.

But in that regard, Einstein's light years ahead of everyone else.

[Calvin Locke]

Stealing "art" and "science" from third-world cultures?

I kid you not.

A while back, when fractals were the big "pop" "journalism" topic, somebody was trying to make the case that there are complex fractal patterns in the cloth weavings of some African tribes, and it was really those peoples that "discovered" fractals, hence those cultures were on the forefront of modern mathematics.

As the Slimes article points out, his work was inspired by nature, so could the woven patterns in cloth just because the patterns were pleasing to the eye, not because of some innate mathematical inspiration.

I wonder if Mandelbrot's work influenced Hawking and Susskind - measuring the unmeasurable and what really happens to that "information"?

[married21]

that is so cool!

[La Lydia]

Different generation, waaay different age, different sciences. Or are we not allowed to admire people who aren’t Einstein? Sorry to have offended you by posting the obit of someone whom I admire and respect. I’ll check with you next time to make sure you approve. Oh, wait. Einstein is dead. So I guess we won’t be taking note of the passage of any other scientific or mathematical greats because you say so.

[La Lydia]

I always thought that Indian paisley patterns look vaguely fractal-like, but it never occurred to me to claim that Hindu peasants in Indian had discovered fractals!

http://www.beautiful-bib-aprons.com/prod24.htm

[Little Bill]

I read the book, made a lot sense when I thought about it. There was a weather scientist at MIT, name escapes me, who wrote one the same topic.

[crghill]

I use his work to assist my trading of financial instruments. I believe he stumbled into the order God placed in the Universe. I will miss him.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The Black Swan:

The Impact of the Highly Improbable
 by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In that book, Taleb says that Mandelbot gave him books from his library . . .