Being a language, mathematics may be used not only to inform but also, among other things, to seduce.
BENOIT MANDELBROTMy life has been extremely complicated. Not by choice at the beginning at all, but later on, I had become used to complication and went on accepting things that other people would have found too difficult to accept.
More Benoit Mandelbrot Quotes
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A fractal is a way of seeing infinity.
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I went to the computer and tried to experiment. I introduced a very high level of experiment in very pure mathematics.
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Engineering is too important to wait for science.
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If 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.
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Pictures were completely eliminated from mathematics; in particular when I was young this happened in a very strong fashion.
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When people ask me what’s my field? I say, on one hand, a fractalist. Perhaps the only one, the only full-time one.
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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.
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The rare scholars who are nomads-by-choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the settled disciplines.
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I spent my time very nicely in many ways, but not fully satisfactory. Then I became Professor in France, but realized that I was not – for the job that I should spend my life in.
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Beautiful, damn hard, increasingly useful. That’s fractals.
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In fact, I barely missed being number one in France in both schools. In particular I did very well in mathematical problems.
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Humanity has known for a long time what fractals are. It is a very strange situation in which an idea which each time I look at all documents have deeper and deeper roots, never (how to say it), jelled.
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Now that I near 80, I realize with wistful pleasure that on many occasions I was 10, 20, 40, even 50 years ahead of my time.
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Why is geometry often described as cold and dry? One reason lies in its inability to describe the shape of a cloud, a mountain, a coastline or a tree.
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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