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Smooth shapes are very rare in the wild but extremely important in the ivory tower and the factory.
Benoit Mandelbrot
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Benoit Mandelbrot
Age: 85 †
Born: 1924
Born: November 20
Died: 2010
Died: October 14
Computer Scientist
Economist
Engineer
Mathematician
Professor
Scientist
Writer
Warszawa
Mandelbrot
B. B.
Benoît Mandelbrot
Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Towers
Factories
Smooth
Rare
Extremely
Fractals
Wild
Ivory
Shapes
Tower
Important
Factory
More quotes by Benoit Mandelbrot
If one takes the kinds of risks which I took, which are colossal, but taking risks, I was rewarded by being able to contribute in a very substantial fashion to a variety of fields. I was able to reawaken and solve some very old problems.
Benoit Mandelbrot
Regular geometry, the geometry of Euclid, is concerned with shapes which are smooth, except perhaps for corners and lines, special lines which are singularities, but some shapes in nature are so complicated that they are equally complicated at the big scale and come closer and closer and they don't become any less complicated.
Benoit Mandelbrot
A cloud is made of billows upon billows upon billows that look like clouds. As you come closer to a cloud you don't get something smooth, but irregularities at a smaller scale.
Benoit Mandelbrot
Some mathematicians didn't even perceive of the possibility of a picture being helpful. To the contrary, I went into an orgy of looking at pictures by the hundreds the machines became a little bit better.
Benoit Mandelbrot
The straight line has a property of self-similarity. Each piece of the straight line is the same as the whole line when used to a big or small extent.
Benoit Mandelbrot
The techniques I developed for studying turbulence, like weather, also apply to the stock market
Benoit Mandelbrot
I didn't feel comfortable at first with pure mathematics, or as a professor of pure mathematics. I wanted to do a little bit of everything and explore the world.
Benoit Mandelbrot
An extraordinary amount of arrogance is present in any claim of having been the first in inventing something.
Benoit Mandelbrot
The most important thing I have done is to combine something esoteric with a practical issue that affects many people.
Benoit Mandelbrot
One couldn't even measure roughness. So, by luck, and by reward for persistence, I did found the theory of roughness, which certainly I didn't expect and expecting to found one would have been pure madness.
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
Engineering is too important to wait for science.
Benoit Mandelbrot
Unfortunately, the world has not been designed for the convenience of mathematicians.
Benoit Mandelbrot
I had very, very little training in taking an exam to determine a scientist's life in France.
Benoit Mandelbrot
Asking the right questions is as important as answering them
Benoit Mandelbrot
Think of color, pitch, loudness, heaviness, and hotness. Each is the topic of a branch of physics
Benoit Mandelbrot
A fractal is a way of seeing infinity.
Benoit Mandelbrot
I didn't want to become a pure mathematician, as a matter of fact, my uncle was one, so I knew what the pure mathematician was and I did not want to be a pure - I wanted to do something different.
Benoit Mandelbrot
I spent my time very nicely in many ways, but not fully satisfactory. Then I became Professor in France, but realized that I was not - for the job that I should spend my life in.
Benoit Mandelbrot
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
