Celebrating Benoit Mandelbrot, the Man Who Made Math Beautiful
The Famous, Influential Mandelbrot Set Wikipedia As modern mathematicians go, few were better known or more celebrated than Benoit Mandelbrot. The father of fractals died late last week at age 85, prompting reflection on his contributions to geometry and our understanding of natural phenomena. Click to launch the photo gallery Mandelbrot wrote mathematical formulas that help explain nature, supplementing the cold, sharp angles of basic Euclidian geometry with fantastic spirals, asymmetric tendrils and repeating bubbles. With his formulas, complex structures like coastlines could be explained with a little neat math. In the intro to his book "The Fractal Geometry of Nature," he asks, "Why is geometry often described as cold and dry? One reason lies in its inability to describe the shape of a cloud, a mountain or a tree." In fractal shapes - which Mandelbrot coined from the Latin word fractus, or "broken" - each part mimics the pattern of the whole....