You've probably never heard of this man who just died. We often that we tend to dazzle with beautiful artistic or scientific genius we never really aware that behind every job is a human being who lives, enjoys, suffers, and as we all happen one day, it dies. This is the case of BenoƮt Mandelbrot, a brilliant mathematician known for his work with fractals, defined earlier by Gaston Julia, but popularized by Mandelbrot who is credited with being the first to work with computers to study the fractality. Possessing an enviable career on Saturday left us 85 years a victim of pancreatic cancer. The father of fractal geometry has left this world but his legacy will last forever.
Benoit Mandelbrot, a French-American mathematician who explored a new class of mathematical forms known as "fractals", has died at age 85 in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Northeast U.S.), according to The New York Sunday Times. His wife told the newspaper Aliette Mandelbrot died of pancreatic cancer in a clinic. His seminal book, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature", published in 1982, holds that irregular mathematical objects were discarded as "pathological" are actually a reflection of nature. Fractal geometry developed would be used to measure natural phenomena such as clouds or costs. Mandelbrot "was one of the first who realized that they were legitimate objects of study," he told The New York Times, David Mumford, professor of mathematics at Brown University.
In a seminal book, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature", published in 1982, Dr. Mandelbrot defended certain mathematical objects which he spoke about what others had dismissed as "monstrous" and "pathological." Through the use of fractal geometry, he argued, the complexity of the contours of the clouds and coastlines, once considered immeasurable, could now "be addressed in a quantitative, rigorous and energetic." Moreover, for most of his colleagues, was known to possess an uncanny ability to create within the field of mathematics. Dr. Mandelbrot began his research in fractals when a young researcher asked a simple question: "how long is the coast of Britain?". The answer surprised to discover, it depends on how close you can look and see. On a map the coast of the island may seem soft, but at closer look will reveal jagged edges that are added to a longer coastline. Expanding the scale, every detail becomes even more giant size of the coast.
For nearly seven decades, in collaboration with dozens of scientists, Dr. Mandelbrot helped in the fields of geology, medicine, cosmology and engineering. He used fractal geometry to explain how galaxies cluster, how wheat prices change over time and how the brains of mammals are tightened and wrinkle as they grow, among other phenomena. His influence has been felt in the field of geometry, which was among the first to use computer graphics to study mathematical objects such as the Mandelbrot set, which were so named in his honor. "I decided to go into areas where others would not mathematicians," said Dr. Mandelbrot. "I played a strange role that none of my students dare to take and continue"
When asked about looking back on his career, Dr. Mandelbrot compared his own path with the outline of the clouds and costs. Events that led to the study of fractals in the 1950's. "If you take the beginning and the end, I had a conventional career," he said of prestigious appointments in Paris and at Yale. "But it was not a straight line between the beginning and the end. It was a very crooked line.
Rest In Peace. (1924-2010).