The man behind it: Benoit Mandelbrot#

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Fig. 8 Benoit Mandelrot at a TED Talk 2010. Photo taken by Steve Jurvetson. CC BY 2.0#

  • A polish-born french-american mathematician.

  • Studied mathematics both in France and the United States

  • Broad interest in various scientific topics.

  • Worked on the idea of describing roughness in nature

  • Idea: Use simple mathematical formulas based on recursion to create complex shapes and curves

  • Effect: Self-similarity. Shapes visible in large structures repeat in smaller sections, creating more detail

Extending the work of French mathematicians Fatou and Julia led to the definition of the set of numbers named after him. The Mandelbrot Set.