Friday, November 22, 2013

Every Nerd Will Love This Errol Morris-Benoit Mandelbrot Interview

Morris says, "The fractal stuff... What was the origins of that?" We watch Mandelbrot hear the question. As it finishes, we watch emotion flicker over his face for just a second longer than you expect. "The fractal stuff" was the most notable discovery of his life, which ended 19 days later.

The video has a poignance that marketing should practically be barred from deploying. Here's Mandelbrot on publishing his book on fractals:

And then I wrote a little book. It was in French actually. And it had no title because in a certain sense, I had not felt the need of a word for fractal. And the publisher, he told me, "Ridiculous! You must invent a word if you wish for that." I thought and thought. I went to my son's study room. He had a Latin dictionary and I was looking for a word which somehow fit the idea of something I was doing. It was 'fractal.' Giving it a word gave the topic a certain reality. It's now in every dictionary.



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