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View Full Version : RIP - Benoit Mandelbrot: 1924-2010



ibuclaw
October 16th, 2010, 04:00 PM
Nothing in the news media yet, but many folks on Twitter and colleague Nassim Taleb (http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/) are reporting that Benoit Mandelbrot has died at age 85.

I think we should take this time to share a few thoughts and condolences in respect of the father of fractal geometry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoit_Mandelbrot). We're not there yet, but someday Mandelbrot's name will be mentioned in the same breath as Einstein's as a genius who fundamentally shifted our perception of how the world works.

drawkcab
October 16th, 2010, 04:07 PM
Agreed.

AlphaLexman
October 16th, 2010, 05:42 PM
Here, here.

rbroom
October 17th, 2010, 03:12 AM
Is there a fractal application in Ubuntu that can go deeper than XAOS? On this occasion I thought I'd go for a quick ride down the imaginary plane, but hit "bottom" pretty quick. Xaos did make the trip fun.

wilee-nilee
October 17th, 2010, 03:45 AM
Another fractal.
172603

Schrute Farms
October 17th, 2010, 04:08 AM
I remember punching in a BASIC program on my old Commodore 64 that produced some Mandelbrot graphics. I remember it took like 8 hours to do a full screen.

That same graphic (the one in ibuclaw's gravatar) can now be done in seconds. Amazing how far we've come.

Austin25
October 17th, 2010, 04:09 AM
:(
I really admired his work.

Is there a fractal application in Ubuntu that can go deeper than XAOS? On this occasion I thought I'd go for a quick ride down the imaginary plane, but hit "bottom" pretty quick. Xaos did make the trip fun. I know. I think the problem is it uses standard floating point numbers, and loses precision fast.

Austin25
October 19th, 2010, 04:30 AM
Rip
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