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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

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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
Less
Corners
Singularity
Bigs
Complicated
Geometry
Nature
Shapes
Smooth
Become
Except
Regular
Come
Concerned
Scale
Perhaps
Closer
Special
Equally
Lines
Scales
Euclid

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A formula can be very simple, and create a universe of bottomless complexity.
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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.
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An extraordinary amount of arrogance is present in any claim of having been the first in inventing something.
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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.
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Unfortunately, the world has not been designed for the convenience of mathematicians.
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Everybody in mathematics had given up for 100 years or 200 years the idea that you could from pictures, from looking at pictures, find new ideas. That was the case long ago in the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance, in later periods, but then mathematicians had become very abstract.
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The beauty of what I happened by extraordinary chance to put together is that nobody would have believed that this is possible, and certainly I didn't expect that it was possible. I just moved from step to step to step.
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The most important thing I have done is to combine something esoteric with a practical issue that affects many people.
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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.
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The rare scholars who are nomads-by-choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the settled disciplines.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I went to the computer and tried to experiment. I introduced a very high level of experiment in very pure mathematics.
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The techniques I developed for studying turbulence, like weather, also apply to the stock market
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Smooth shapes are very rare in the wild but extremely important in the ivory tower and the factory.
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My fate has been that what I undertook was fully understood only after the fact.
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Nobody will deny that there is at least some roughness everywhere
Benoit Mandelbrot
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There is a joke that your hammer will always find nails to hit. I find that perfectly acceptable
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For most of my life, one of the persons most baffled by my own work was myself.
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