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The most complex object in mathematics, the Mandelbrot Set … is so complex as to be uncontrollable by mankind and describable as ‘chaos’.

Benoit Mandelbrot

I went to the computer and tried to experiment. I introduced a very high level of experiment in very pure mathematics.
BENOIT MANDELBROT

Computer Levels Mathematics
I didn’t feel comfortable at first with pure mathematics, or as a professor of pure mathematics. I wanted to do a little bit of everything and explore the world.
BENOIT MANDELBROT

Firsts Littles Mathematician Pure World
An extraordinary amount of arrogance is present in any claim of having been the first in inventing something.
BENOIT MANDELBROT

Arrogance Claims Firsts
My fate has been that what I undertook was fully understood only after the fact.
BENOIT MANDELBROT

Facts Fate Understood
Self-similarity is a dull subject because you are used to very familiar shapes. But that is not the case. Now many shapes which are self-similar again, the same seen from close by and far away, and which are far from being straight or plane or solid.
BENOIT MANDELBROT

Case Dull Self Shape Shapes
Think not of what you see, but what it took to produce what you see.
BENOIT MANDELBROT

Produce See Thinking Took
I was in an industrial laboratory because academia found me unsuitable
BENOIT MANDELBROT

Academia Found Laboratory
Asking the right questions is as important as answering them
BENOIT MANDELBROT

Asking Important Questions Right
The 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 MANDELBROT

Lines Pieces Self
Nobody will deny that there is at least some roughness everywhere
BENOIT MANDELBROT

Deny Everywhere Roughness
I had many books and I had dreams of all kinds. Dreams in which were in a certain sense, how to say, easy to make because the near future was always extremely threatening.
BENOIT MANDELBROT

Book Dream Kind
I 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 MANDELBROT

Different Mathematician Uncles Want
For much of my life there was no place where the things I wanted to investigate were of interest to anyone.
BENOIT MANDELBROT

Interest Life Thing Wanted
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 MANDELBROT

Circles Clouds Mountain
The theory of probability is the only mathematical tool available to help map the unknown and the uncontrollable. It is fortunate that this tool, while tricky, is extraordinarily powerful and convenient.
BENOIT MANDELBROT

Powerful Science Tool
Some 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 MANDELBROT

Helpful Littles Machines

The most complex object in mathematics, the Mandelbrot Set … is so complex as to be uncontrollable by mankind and describable as ‘chaos’.

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The most complex object in mathematics, the Mandelbrot Set … is so complex as to be uncontrollable by mankind and describable as ‘chaos’.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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