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Benoît Mandelbrot Quotes

1924–2010 France

Benoît B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a Poland-born French-American mathematician known as the "father of fractal geometry".

France
Academics
Computer scientists
Economists
Mathematicians

Also known as: Benoit Mandelbrot, Mandelbrot, Benoît

Random Benoît Mandelbrot quote

42 quotes

If you have a hammer, use it everywhere you can, but I do not claim that everything is fractal.

Unfortunately, the world has not been designed for the convenience of mathematicians.

The (Mis)Behavior of Markets (2004)

Fractal geometry is not just a chapter of mathematics, but one that helps Everyman to see the same world differently.

The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1982)

Engineering is too important to wait for science.

Contrary to popular opinion, mathematics is about simplifying life, not complicating it.

The (Mis)Behavior of Markets (2004)

Being a language, mathematics may be used not only to inform but also, among other things, to seduce.

Given the profits he and Pharaoh must have made, one might call Joseph the first international arbitrageur.

The (Mis)Behavior of Markets (2004)

It is beyond belief that we know so little about how people get rich or poor, about how it is they come to dwell in comfort and health or die in penury and disease.

The (Mis)Behavior of Markets (2004)

So limited is our knowledge that we resort, not to science, but to shamans. We place control of the world's largest economy in the hands of a few elderly men, the central bankers.

The (Mis)Behavior of Markets (2004)

People want to see patterns in the world. It is how we evolved … So important is this skill that we apply it everywhere, warranted or not.

For most of my life, one of the persons most baffled by my own work was myself.

A fractal is a mathematical set or concrete object that is irregular or fragmented at all scales...

After having coined this word I sorted my own research over a very long period of time and I realised that I had been doing almost nothing else in my life.

Many creative minds overrate their most baroque works, and underrate the simple ones.

The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1982)

A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff-Besicovitch dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension.

The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1982)

Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.

The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1982)

For many years I had been hearing the comment that fractals make beautiful pictures, but are pretty useless. I was irritated because important applications always take some time to be revealed.

A Theory of Roughness (2004)

How could it be that the same technique applies to the Internet, the weather and the stock market? Why, without particularly trying, am I touching so many different aspects of many different things?

A Theory of Roughness (2004)

There is no single rule that governs the use of geometry. I don't think that one exists.

New Scientist interview (2004)

The word fractal, once introduced, had an extraordinary integrating effect upon myself and upon many people around.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Benoît Mandelbrot (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.