Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.
BENOIT MANDELBROTClouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.
BENOIT MANDELBROTSome mathematicians didn’t even perceive of the possibility of a picture being helpful. To the contrary, I went into an orgy of looking at pictures by the hundreds; the machines became a little bit better.
BENOIT MANDELBROTThe most complex object in mathematics, the Mandelbrot Set … is so complex as to be uncontrollable by mankind and describable as ‘chaos’.
BENOIT MANDELBROTThink not of what you see, but what it took to produce what you see.
BENOIT MANDELBROTI didn’t want to become a pure mathematician, as a matter of fact, my uncle was one, so I knew what the pure mathematician was and I did not want to be a pure – I wanted to do something different.
BENOIT MANDELBROTThere is a saying that every nice piece of work needs the right person in the right place at the right time.
BENOIT MANDELBROTBoth chaos theory and fractal have had contacts in the past when they are both impossible to develop and in a certain sense not ready to be developed.
BENOIT MANDELBROTA fractal is a mathematical set or concrete object that is irregular or fragmented at all scales…
BENOIT MANDELBROTWhen people ask me what’s my field? I say, on one hand, a fractalist. Perhaps the only one, the only full-time one.
BENOIT MANDELBROTI was in an industrial laboratory because academia found me unsuitable
BENOIT MANDELBROTIf one takes the kinds of risks which I took, which are colossal, but taking risks, I was rewarded by being able to contribute in a very substantial fashion to a variety of fields. I was able to reawaken and solve some very old problems.
BENOIT MANDELBROTI spent half my life, roughly speaking, doing the study of nature in many aspects and half of my life studying completely artificial shapes. And the two are extraordinarily close; in one way both are fractal.
BENOIT MANDELBROTIn fact, I barely missed being number one in France in both schools. In particular I did very well in mathematical problems.
BENOIT MANDELBROTThe straight line has a property of self-similarity. Each piece of the straight line is the same as the whole line when used to a big or small extent.
BENOIT MANDELBROTThe theory of chaos and theory of fractals are separate, but have very strong intersections. That is one part of chaos theory is geometrically expressed by fractal shapes.
BENOIT MANDELBROTThe Mandelbrot set is the most complex mathematical object known to mankind.
BENOIT MANDELBROT