Benoit Mandelbrot, whose pioneering work on fractal geometry made him one of the few modern mathematicians to approach widespread fame, died October 14 at the age of 85. The cause, his wife told The New York Times, was pancreatic cancer.
Mandelbrot coined the term “fractal” in 1975 to describe irregular shapes in nature and in mathematics that exhibit self-similarity—like snowflakes or Romanesco broccoli, they look roughly the same at varying scales. The so-called Mandelbrot set, a plot of complex numbers whose boundary forms a fractal, provided perhaps the most visually entrancing embodiment of the concept.
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Thanks nyokki for posting it, when I told my co-workers yesterday that Mandelbrot had died, they didn’t know who I was talking about, which made me sad. So at least you and I know who he was.
when i tilt my head to the left, the bottom one reminds me of your mom.