Born this date in 1924 was Benoit B Mandelbrot. Mandelbrot was the man who named and explained fractals. The Mandelbrot set, one of the most famous fractal designs, is named after him.
He was born in Poland. His father was a clothing trader and his mother was a dentist. When he was 11, the family moved to Paris to escape the Nazis.
After World War II, Mandelbrot studied mathematics, at universities in Paris, and then studied at California Institute of Technology, where he earned a master's degree in aeronautics. He obtained his PhD degree in Mathematical Sciences at the University of Paris in 1952. He had dual US and French citizenship.
In 1958, he began a long career at IBM, where he became a fellow, and took time out now and then to teach economics and applied sciences at Harvard University. Toward the end of his career, he was the Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Yale University, where he was the oldest professor in Yale's history to receive tenure.
The B doesn't stand for anything. He just felt like adding it.
Traditional geometry, he said, is a bit dry, because it only deals with regular shapes and has been studied since the time of the ancient Greeks. He was more interested in what he called "the art of roughness" of physical phenomena and "the uncontrolled element in life". Something which inspired him early on was the coastline of Great Britain. He wondered if it was possible to get an accurate measurement of its length and discovered that, the closer you look, the more you find.
He studied financial markets, especially Cotton trading, and described the markets as an example of "wild randomness".
Aided by his access to computers at IBM, he began studying what we now know as fractals, beginning with mathematical objects called Julia sets, and later the set that would later be named for him, the Mandelbrot set.
In 1975, Mandelbrot coined the term fractal, which he took from the Latin word "fractus", meaning broken or shattered Glass.
Arthur C Clarke pointed out that the name Mandelbrot is similar to the word Mandala, meaning a religious symbol, and that the Mandelbrot set contained rather a lot of them.
There is even a song about the Mandelbrot set, written by music satirist Jonathan Coulton. The lyrics go: “Mandelbrot Set, you're a Rorschach Test on fire; You're a day-glo pterodactyl; You're a heart-shaped box of springs and wire; You're one badass fucking fractal; And you're just in time to save the day; Sweeping all our fears away; You can change the world in a tiny way.”
Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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