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Interview With Math Legend Benoit Mandelbrot

Posted by timothy on from the strange-bread-loops dept.

Vertigo01 writes "New Scientist is currently featuring an interview with Benoit Mandelbrot the father of the Mandelbrot set, and the man who discovered fractals. 'What motivates me now are ideas I developed 10, 20 or 30 years ago, and the feeling that these ideas may be lost if I don't push them a little bit further.'"

8 of 286 comments (clear)

  1. Quote from TFA by Meostro · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From TFA, a BRILLIANT! quote from a fella who apparently enjoys being a crotchety old bastard:
    All my life, I have enjoyed the reputation of being someone who disrupted prevailing ideas. Now that I'm in my 80th year, I can play on my age and provoke people even more.
    I hope to be like him when I get to be that old. In case any of you haven't heard of Mandelbrot, you should take a look here.
    1. Re:Quote from TFA by Ned+in+California · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He probably does enjoy it. I read his book when it first came out in the early 80's. The book was interesting and had beautiful color pictures, but was extremely difficult to read because of the overwhelming arrogance and self aggrandizement. It seemed like every other sentence was something like "We were the first in the world to recognize this" and "All those other smucks never noticed that" and "this would never have been discovered if it weren't for our overarching genius"... I found the mathematics fascinating, but the tone of the book was almost unbearable. For me, the personality and attitude seeping through detracted from what would otherwise tremendously interesting. If I remember correctly, there were accusations that several other researchers were not adequately credited for their part in the development of fractal geometry, but that was over 20 years ago and I could be thinking of something else...

  2. Julia by Ann+Coulter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Gaston Julia, from circa 1920, investigated fractals before Mandelbrot. His work is the basis of Mandelbrot sets as the points in the Mandelbrot set are exactly those parameters for the corresponding Julia sets that are connected. If anyone should attribute fractals to any one man, Julia is more pronounced than Mandelbrot. Granted, Mandelbrot popularized fractals but the analysis stems from Julia's work.

  3. Re:sqrt(-1) by MustardMan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know it really says something about the slashdot moderation system that you had to explain this joke, in fear that mods-on-crack without a clue would mod you down as offtopic or some other such nonsense. I have mod points right now, but decided to comment on the abysmal state of the mod system instead.

  4. BRILLIANT by scribblej · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Q:Fractals seem to appear all over nature and in economics. Even the internet is fractal. What does that say about the underlying nature of these phenomena?

    A:Well, it depends on the field. Circles and straight lines also appear everywhere. Does this mean that all those phenomena have something in common? Of course not. The roughly circular trajectory of a planet around the sun is due to gravitational interactions. Berries are round because a sphere has a smaller skin. The beauty of geometry is that it is a language of extraordinary subtlety that serves many purposes.

    Q:So fractals don't point to a single rule underlying reality?

    A:There is no single rule that governs the use of geometry. I don't think that one exists.

    ----

    If I believed in a God, I'd say God bless Mr Mandelbrot. As it is, I'll just say, "Damn skippy."

    I suppose it's not right that i'm more irritated about the new-age whackos who think fractals really *MEAN* something than the guy who invented the Mandelbrot set is.

    (Invented? Discovered? Well, whatever, you know what I mean.)

    Now I've got a nice little quote of The Man Himself telling them all they're f-ing idiots.

    I LOVE THIS MAN!

    1. Re:BRILLIANT by scribblej · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Stole?

      The Mandelbrot set is *definitely* a direct extension of Gaston Julia's theory and work. The problem is that Julia's work was unfinished.

      So I'm not sure how to refer to Mandelbrot's accomplishment -- is it a discovery? A refinement? An invention? I'm not sure what term is correct.

      But stolen does not seem correct. And I dont' just mean in the tired "intellectual property is not theft" sense... if he appropriated Julia's intellectual property without permission, I'd go as far as to call that Stealing.

      I don't think he did, though -- even in this very article the subject comes up and he gives full credit to Julia for what Julia did.

  5. Re:Negative space? by TCM · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ^H^H

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  6. Most children... by terrencefw · · Score: 3, Insightful
    (From TFA...) It is so simple that most children can program their home computers to produce the Mandelbrot set.
    Well, yes, I suspect most of us could and most likely did on our ZX81's, C64's, BBC B's etc etc.

    /puts old man hat on

    Could most kids today get their PS2 to draw a mandelbrot set? Does Windows XP provide the tools to acquire and use this knowledge? No.

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