The Fractalist

A heroic story of discovery. . . . Illustrate[s] what it takes for great new science to be created. --Stephen Wolfram, The Wall Street Journal Mandelbrot had the kind of beautiful, buzzing mind that made even gifted fellow scientists feel shabby around the edges. . . . The Fractalist evokes the kinds of deceptively simple questions Mandelbrot asked . . . and the profound answers he supplied. --The New York Times Fascinating and engaging . . . A compelling look at one of the greatest multidisciplinary thinkers of the 21st century. --Wired.com Mandelbrot was a spell-worker who saw connections no one else did and united apparently disparate phenomena. The mathematics of fractals--and pictures of the Mandelbrot set--offered many budding mathematicians their first taste of 'real' mathematics, in all its beauty, utility and sheer unexpectedness. --The Economist The delight Mandelbrot took in roughness, brokenness, and complexity, in forms that earlier mathematicians had regarded as 'monstrous' or 'pathological, ' has a distinctly modern flavor. Indeed, with their intricate patterns that recur endlessly on ever tinier scales, Mandelbrot's fractals call to mind the definition of beauty offered by Baudelaire: C'est l'infini dans le fini. --New York Review of Books If you love fractals, you will love this memoir. . . . Mandelbrot describes his life and times with both introspection and humor. --New York Journal of Books Charmingly written . . . The memoir of a brilliant mathematician who never thought of himself as a mathematician. --Kirkus Reviews Captures the enthusiasm as well as the memories of a visionary who loved nothing better than studying complex multidisciplinary concepts. --Publishers Weekly [Mandelbrot's] work has spread and impacted so many fields that there's nobody in the world who is broad enough to appreciate the full impact. . . . [His] mix of gall and genius gave him license to ask the questions no one else did. --Thomas Theis, director of physical sciences at IBM Research Mandelbrot brings us back to the sense of the wonder of things, without giving up the logic. --John Briggs, author of Fractals: The Patterns of Chaos When we talk about the impact inside mathematics, and applications in the sciences, [Mandelbrot] is one of the most important figures of the last 50 years. --Heinz-Otto Peitgen, professor of mathematics and biomedical sciences at the University of Bremen A heroic story of discovery. . . . Illustrate[s] what it takes for great new science to be created. Stephen Wolfram, The Wall Street Journal Mandelbrot had the kind of beautiful, buzzing mind that made even gifted fellow scientists feel shabby around the edges. . . . The Fractalist evokes the kinds of deceptively simple questions Mandelbrot asked . . . and the profound answers he supplied. The New York Times Fascinating and engaging . . . A compelling look at one of the greatest multidisciplinary thinkers of the 21st century. Wired.com Mandelbrot was a spell-worker who saw connections no one else did and united apparently disparate phenomena. The mathematics of fractals and pictures of the Mandelbrot set offered many budding mathematicians their first taste of real mathematics, in all its beauty, utility and sheer unexpectedness. The Economist The delight Mandelbrot took in roughness, brokenness, and complexity, in forms that earlier mathematicians had regarded as monstrous or pathological, has a distinctly modern flavor. Indeed, with their intricate patterns that recur endlessly on ever tinier scales, Mandelbrot s fractals call to mind the definition of beauty offered by Baudelaire: C est l infini dans le fini. New York Review of Books If you love fractals, you will love this memoir. . . . Mandelbrot describes his life and times with both introspection and humor. New York Journal of Books Charmingly written . . . The memoir of a brilliant mathematician who never thought of himself as a mathematician. Kirkus Reviews Captures the enthusiasm as well as the memories of a visionary who loved nothing better than studying complex multidisciplinary concepts. Publishers Weekly [Mandelbrot s] work has spread and impacted so many fields that there s nobody in the world who is broad enough to appreciate the full impact. . . . [His] mix of gall and genius gave him license to ask the questions no one else did. Thomas Theis, director of physical sciences at IBM Research Mandelbrot brings us back to the sense of the wonder of things, without giving up the logic. John Briggs, author of Fractals: The Patterns of Chaos When we talk about the impact inside mathematics, and applications in the sciences, [Mandelbrot] is one of the most important figures of the last 50 years. Heinz-Otto Peitgen, professor of mathematics and biomedical sciences at the University of Bremen A heroic story of discovery. . . . Illustrate[s] what it takes for great new science to be created. --Stephen Wolfram, The Wall Street Journal Mandelbrot had the kind of beautiful, buzzing mind that made even gifted fellow scientists feel shabby around the edges. . . . The Fractalist evokes the kinds of deceptively simple questions Mandelbrot asked . . . and the profound answers he supplied. -- The New York Times Fascinating and engaging . . . A compelling look at one of the greatest multidisciplinary thinkers of the 21st century. -- Wired. com Mandelbrot was a spell-worker who saw connections no one else did and united apparently disparate phenomena. The mathematics of fractals--and pictures of the Mandelbrot set--offered many budding mathematicians their first taste of 'real' mathematics, in all its beauty, utility and sheer unexpectedness. -- The Economist The delight Mandelbrot took in roughness, brokenness, and complexity, in forms that earlier mathematicians had regarded as 'monstrous' or 'pathological, ' has a distinctly modern flavor. Indeed, with their intricate patterns that recur endlessly on ever tinier scales, Mandelbrot's fractals call to mind the definition of beauty offered by Baudelaire: C'est l'infini dans le fini. -- New York Review of Books If you love fractals, you will love this memoir. . . . Mandelbrot describes his life and times with both introspection and humor. -- New York Journal of Books Charmingly written . . . The memoir of a brilliant mathematician who never thought of himself as a mathematician. -- Kirkus Reviews Captures the enthusiasm as well as the memories of a visionary who loved nothing better than studying complex multidisciplinary concepts. -- Publishers Weekly [Mandelbrot's] work has spread and impacted so many fields that there's nobody in the world who is broad enough to appreciate the full impact. . . . [His] mix of gall and genius gave him license to ask the questions no one else did. --Thomas Theis, director of physical sciences at IBM Research Mandelbrot brings us back to the sense of the wonder of things, without giving up the logic. --John Briggs, author of Fractals: The Patterns of Chaos When we talk about the impact inside mathematics, and applications in the sciences, [Mandelbrot] is one of the most important figures of the last 50 years. --Heinz-Otto Peitgen, professor of mathematics and biomedical sciences at the University of Bremen Mandelbrot changed the way we look at a wide range of random phenomena from commodity prices to the shapes of mountains, rivers, and coastlines...The memoir captures the enthusiasm as well as the memories of a visionary who loved nothing better than studying complex multidisciplinary concepts. - Publishers Weekly 'When I find myself in the company of scientists, ' W. H. Auden wrote, 'I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.' Benoit B. Mandelbrot (1924-2010) had the kind of beautiful, buzzing mind that made even gifted fellow scientists feel shabby around the edges... The Fractalist evokes the kinds of deceptively simple questions Mandelbrot asked--'What shape is a mountain, a coastline, a river or a dividing line between two river watersheds?'--and the profound answers he supplied. -Dwight Garner, The New York Times Memoir of a brilliant mathematician who never thought of himself as a mathematician...charmingly written. - Kirkus Benoit Mandelbrot was the one who let us appreciate chaos in all its glory--the noisy, the wayward, and the freakish, from the very small to the very large. He invented a new and slightly nebulous field of study--a kind of geometry, for want of a better description--and he invented that recondite name for it, fractal. Clouds are not spheres --the most famous sentence he ever wrote-- mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line. They are all fractal. Clouds, mountains, coastlines, bark, and lightning: jagged and discontinuous, they are shapes that branch out or fold in upon themselves recursively. He found relevant mathematics in some old and freakish ideas--'monsters, ' as he said, 'mathematical pathologies' that had been relegated to the fringes. 'I started looking in the trash cans of science for such phenomena, ' he said, and he meant this literally: one sc