As you may have heard, mathematician Benoît B. Mandelbrot, the father of fractal geometry, died on Thursday in Cambridge, Mass. He was 85. You can read the full obit in The New York Times, and if you want to learn more about his work, let me resurface this documentary we featured not too long ago. Back in 1995, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the futurist and science fiction writer most well known for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, presented a television documentary on the 1980 discovery of the Mandelbrot Set (M-Set). Fractals: The Colors of Infinity brings us inside the world of fractal geometry, and soon enough we’re encountering what has been called “the thumbprint of God.” Clarke narrates the film, which has a 54 minute runtime. David Gilmour (guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for Pink Floyd) created the soundtrack. Big hat tip to Greg for sending this along…
Note: You can purchase online the DVD of the documentary, along with the original book on which it was based.
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Mandelbrot’s thinking-outside-the-box is as nothing compared to your imaginative, if not unprecedented, transitive use of “resurface” in this way.
Always grateful for your existence OpenCulture.com, keeping us meeks well educated.