ABOUT US | QUARK PRIZES | DAG-3QD SYMPOSIA | MONDAY MAGAZINE | ARCHIVES | FOLLOW US |

3 Quarks Daily Advertising

 

 

 

 

Please Subscribe to 3QD

Subscription options:

If you would like to make a one time donation in any amount, please do so by clicking the "Pay Now" button below. You may use any credit or debit card and do NOT need to join Paypal.

The editors of 3QD put in hundreds of hours of effort each month into finding the daily links and poem as well as putting out the Monday Magazine and doing all the behind-the-scenes work which goes into running the site.

If you value what we do, please help us to pay our editors very modest salaries for their time and cover our other costs by subscribing above.

We are extremely grateful for the generous support of our loyal readers. Thank you!

3QD on Facebook

3QD on Twitter

3QD by RSS Feed

3QD by Daily Email

Receive all blogposts at the same time every day.

Enter your Email:


Preview 3QD Email

Recent Comments

Powered by Disqus

Miscellany

Design and Photo Credits

The original site was designed by Mikko Hyppönen and deployed by Henrik Rydberg. It was later upgraded extensively by Dan Balis. The current layout was designed by S. Abbas Raza, building upon the earlier look, and coded by Dumky de Wilde.

The banner images have been provided by Terri Amig, Carla Goller, Tom Hilde, Georg Hofer, Sheherbano Husain, Margit Oberrauch, S. Abbas Raza, Sughra Raza, Margaret Scurlock, Shahzia Sikander, Maria Stockner, and Hartwig Thaler.

« After Obama Victory, Shrieking White-Hot Sphere Of Pure Rage Early GOP Front-Runner For 2016 | Main | Totalitarianism, Famine and Us »

Thursday, November 08, 2012

‘The Fractalist,’ Benoit B. Mandelbrot’s Math Memoir

Dwight Garner in the New York Times:

Altbook-popup“When I find myself in the company of scientists,” W. H. Auden wrote, “I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.” Benoit B. Mandelbrot (1924-2010) had the kind of beautiful, buzzing mind that made even gifted fellow scientists feel shabby around the edges. Mandelbrot is said to have revitalized visual geometry and coined the term “fractal” to refer to a new class of mathematical shapes that uncannily mimic the irregularities found in nature.

He prized roughness and complication. “Think of color, pitch, loudness, heaviness and hotness,” heonce said. “Each is the topic of a branch of physics.” He dedicated his life to studying roughness and irregularity through geometry, applying what he learned to biology, physics, finance and many other fields.

He was never easy to pin down. He hopscotched so frequently among disciplines and institutions — I.B.M., Yale, Harvard — that in his new memoir, “The Fractalist,” he rather plaintively asks, “So where do I really belong?” The answer is: nearly everywhere.

More here.


Posted by S. Abbas Raza at 02:12 PM | Permalink

comments powered by Disqus