A collection of some of the most inspiring and thought-provoking Benoit Mandelbrot Quotes, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th century. His contribution to mathematics, particularly in the field of fractal geometry, has greatly impacted the fields of computer science and art. His work has been an inspiration to many, and his words are just as powerful today as they were when he first spoke them. Enjoy this collection of Benoit Mandelbrot Quotes!
Benoit Mandelbrot quotes about fractals, fractions, and other math things
⚛ “Beautiful, damn hard, increasingly useful. That’s fractals.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “A fractal is a mathematical set or concrete object that is irregular or fragmented at all scales.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
“A fractal is a way of seeing infinity.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “And dimension need not be a whole number; it can be fractional. Now an ancient concept, dimension, becomes thoroughly modern.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “Fractal geometry is not just a chapter of mathematics, but one that helps Everyman to see the same world differently.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “I do not assert markets are chaotic, though my fractal geometry is one of the primary mathematical tools of ” chaology.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “Being a language, mathematics may be used not only to inform but also, among other things, to seduce.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “Since algebra derives from the Arabic jabara = to bind together, fractal and algebra are etymological opposites!” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “My current best model of how a market works is fractional Brownian motion of multifractal time. It has been called the Multifractal Model of Asset Returns. The basic ideas are similar to the cartoon versions above though far more intricate, mathematically. The cartoon of Brownian motion gets replaced by an equation that a computer can calculate. The trading-time process is expressed by another mathematical function, called f(\propto), that can be tuned to fit a wide range of market behavior.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “My model redistributes time. It compresses it in some places, stretches it out in others. The result appears very wild, very random. The two functions, of time and Brownian motion, work together in what mathematicians call a compound manner: Price is a function of trading time, which in turn is a function of clock time.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
Benoit Mandelbrot quotes about patterns, shapes, and formulas
⚛ “There are very complex shapes which would be the same from close by and far away.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “Self-similarity is a dull subject because you are used to very familiar shapes. But that is not the case. Now many shapes which are self-similar again, the same scene from close by and far away, and which are far from being straight or plane or solid.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “The brain highlights what it imagines as patterns; it disregards contradictory information. Human nature yearns to see order and hierarchy in the world. It will invent it where it cannot find it.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.” ― Benoît Mandelbrot
⚛ “Why is geometry often described as ‘cold’ and ‘dry’? One reason lies in its inability to describe the shape of a cloud, a mountain, a coastline, or a tree.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “For a complex natural shape, dimension is relative. It varies with the observer. The same object can have more than one dimension, depending on how you measure it and what you want to do with it.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “My life seemed to be a series of events and accidents. Yet when I look back, I see a pattern.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “I conceived and developed a new geometry of nature and implemented its use in a number of diverse fields. It describes many of the irregular and fragmented patterns around us, and leads to full-fledged theories, by identifying a family of shapes I call fractals.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “Market crashes are like that. The 29.2 percent collapse of October 19, 1987, arrived without warning or convincing reason; and at the time, it seemed like the end of the financial world. Smaller squalls strike more often, with more localized effect. In fact, a hierarchy of turbulence, a pattern that scales up and down with time, governs this bad financial weather.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “A formula can be very simple and create a universe of bottomless complexity.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
Benoit Mandelbrot quotes that show what he was like as a person
⚛ “For most of my life, one of the persons most baffled by my own work was myself.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “I found myself in the position of that child in a story who noticed a bit of string and – out of curiosity – pulled on it to discover that it was just the tip of a very long and increasingly thick string… and kept bringing out wonders beyond reckoning.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
“I don’t seek power and do not run around.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “A man is known by his heroes.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
⚛ “There is a saying that every nice piece of work needs the right person in the right place at the right time.” — Benoit Mandelbrot
Benoit Mandelbrot Quotes about “Chaos”
⚛ “Both chaos theory and fractal have had contacts in the past when they are both impossible to develop and in a certain sense not ready to be developed.”
⚛ “The theory of chaos and theory of fractals are separate, but have very strong intersections. That is one part of chaos theory is geometrically expressed by fractal shapes.”
⚛ “The most complex object in mathematics, the Mandelbrot Set … is so complex as to be uncontrollable by mankind and describable as ‘chaos’.”
Conclusion
Benoit Mandelbrot’s quotes have inspired people to see the world differently, to take risks, and to go beyond the boundaries of conventional thinking. His legacy lives on in his work and his words, reminding us that there are still new and exciting ways to approach the world. His ideas have opened up new areas of exploration for mathematicians, scientists, and engineers, and have made an indelible mark on the world. We can only hope that his work will continue to inspire generations to come.