Benoit Mandelbrot has died

Sketchy · #1 10-17-2010, 03:54 AM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11560101

frianbisher · #2 10-17-2010, 05:45 AM

That is so not cool. Last week I watched some pbs documentary about fractals and apparently no one really took him seriously for quite some time. The video is on hulu somewhere.

Lost another great mind today, but on the flip side a baby was born somewhere.

**bassybill** · #3 10-17-2010, 06:31 AM

He escaped the Nazis, was massively influential and widely known in his chosen field of work and lived to 85. I'd call that a win. RIP.

Kosko · #4 10-17-2010, 06:59 AM

Here's something we made for dinner that made me think of Mandelbrot recently.

Took:

And turned it into:

Take a point called Z in the complex plane
Let Z1 be Z squared plus C
And Z2 is Z1 squared plus C
And Z3 is Z2 squared plus C and so on
If the series of Z's should always stay
Close to Z and never trend away
That point is in the Mandelbrot Set