When people ask me what's my field? I say, on one hand, a fractalist. Perhaps the only one, the only full-time one. Benoit Mandelbrot More Quotes by Benoit Mandelbrot More Quotes From Benoit Mandelbrot I spent half my life, roughly speaking, doing the study of nature in many aspects and half of my life studying completely artificial shapes. And the two are extraordinarily close; in one way both are fractal. Benoit Mandelbrot shapes half two It was astonishing when at one point, I got the idea of how to make artifical clouds with a collaborator, we had pictures made which were theoretically completely artificial pictures based upon that one very simple idea. And this picture everybody views as being clouds. Benoit Mandelbrot simple views clouds Humanity has known for a long time what fractals are. It is a very strange situation in which an idea which each time I look at all documents have deeper and deeper roots, never (how to say it), jelled. Benoit Mandelbrot roots long ideas I don't seek power and do not run around Benoit Mandelbrot running Round about the accredited and orderly facts of every science there ever floats a sort of dustcloud of exceptional observations, of occurrences minute and irregular and seldom met with, which it always proves more easy to ignore than to attend to. Benoit Mandelbrot order science facts If you have a hammer, use it everywhere you can, but I do not claim that everything is fractal. Benoit Mandelbrot hammers claims use I claim that many patterns of Nature are so irregular and fragmented, that, compared with Euclid - a term used in this work to denote all of standard geometry - Nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity ... The existence of these patterns challenges us to study these forms that Euclid leaves aside as being "formless," to investigate the morphology of the "amorphous." Benoit Mandelbrot different challenges science For much of my life there was no place where the things I wanted to investigate were of interest to anyone. Benoit Mandelbrot interest wanted The existence of these patterns [fractals] challenges us to study forms that Euclid leaves aside as being formless, to investigate the morphology of the amorphous. Mathematicians have disdained this challenge, however, and have increasingly chosen to flee from nature by devising theories unrelated to anything we can see or feel. Benoit Mandelbrot nature challenges science I was in an industrial laboratory because academia found me unsuitable Benoit Mandelbrot academia laboratory found A fractal is a mathematical set or concrete object that is irregular or fragmented at all scales... Benoit Mandelbrot scales definitions science Order doesn't come by itself. Benoit Mandelbrot order The techniques I developed for studying turbulence, like weather, also apply to the stock market Benoit Mandelbrot technique study weather The Mandelbrot set is the most complex mathematical object known to mankind. Benoit Mandelbrot complexes mankind math When the weather changes and hurricanes hit, nobody believes that the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed. It's the same stock market with the same mechanisms and the same people. Benoit Mandelbrot law weather believe Now that I near 80, I realize with wistful pleasure that on many occasions I was 10, 20, 40, even 50 years ahead of my time. Benoit Mandelbrot realizing pleasure years An exquisitely complex shape now known as the Mandlebrot set has been called the most complex object in mathematics. Benoit Mandelbrot shape complex now mathematics Most were beginning to feel they had learned enough to last for the rest of their lives. They remained mathematicians, but largely went their own way. Benoit Mandelbrot rest feel beginning way Until a few years ago, the topics in my Ph.D. were unfashionable, but they are very popular today. Benoit Mandelbrot until very today years When the weather changes, nobody believes the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed. Benoit Mandelbrot rules nobody weather believe
