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Benoit Mandelbrot Dies At 85
Beetle B. writes "Benoit Mandelbrot has passed away at the age of 85. I first learned of the Mandelbrot set while reading Arthur C. Clarke's The Ghost From The Grand Banks. Soon after, I got hold of the best fractal generation software of the day — Fractint — and ran it for long periods of time on my XT, exploring the beautiful world that Mandelbrot, among others, had opened up for me. That it was only on a 4-color CGA did not deter me!"
I didn't know he was still alive. So much for assumptions.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
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Quite - slashdot's obit for a mathematician: read about one thing he did in a popular mass-distributed sci fi book, ran a bit of software (ON A FLOPPY DISK AND ON A FOUR COLOUR DISPLAY!)
I was going to post much the same thing. Some nerd eulogy, 10 words pertaining to the death of a math hero, ~70 devoted to the author. Can we get more HF Asperger/Narcissistic.
loose: not fitting closely or tightly != lose: to suffer the deprivation of
if you look closer, you'll realize that he didn't die, it's just he became too big for us to see.
You can't handle the truth.
I think those pictures he came up with first inspired an entire generation of would-be computer scientists, maths geeks, physicists and Scientific American readers. How such a simple iteration could render those fascinating patterns even on a 2d grid, remains to this day one of the big mysteries. R.I.P. Benoit, I hope you'll finally be able to make sense of the fractal nature of things from up / down there!
Ever wondered whats wrong with the world? http://www.ishmael.org/
I was going to post much the same thing. Some nerd eulogy, 10 words pertaining to the death of a math hero, ~70 devoted to the author. Can we get more HF Asperger/Narcissistic.
Yes. How awful that the author would talk about how the deceased affected him personally.
If ever affected as many people as Mandlebrot did, I would be insulted if they talked about it at my funeral.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
He gave us order out of chaos; he gave us hope where there was none. And his geometry succeeds where others fail. Mandelbrot's in heaven.
I, too, used Fract386, which became Fractint....I worked at a computer store in Toronto, and we used to sell so many NEC Multi-Sync monitors with ATI's VGA Wonder card based upon showing Fractint on it!
Through someone on I met on LJ, I was able to get a "autographed mandelbrot", basically a color print out of part of the Mandelbrot set, autographed by the now, late, great Benoit Mandelbrot. Although I never got to meet him, he discovery has given much beauty to my life.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Fractals were how this non-artist got his art credit in high school with style. :)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.