"The next thing which surprised us very much, is that both for Julia sets and even more so for the Mandelbrot set, the complication was not, how to say, arbitrary, and almost everybody found the impression that these shapes were hauntingly beautiful. These shapes resulted from the most ridiculous transformation, z2+c, taken seriously, respectfully and visually. And people thought at first that they were totally wild, totally extraterrestrial, but then after a very short time, they came back and said, "You know, I think they remind me of something. I think they're natural. I think they are like perhaps nightmares or dreams, but they're natural." And this combination of being so new, because literally when we saw them nobody had seen them before, and being the next day so familiar, is still to me extraordinarily baffling."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from FranceAcademics from the United StatesMathematicians from FranceComputer scientists from the United StatesAcademics from Poland
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Segment 85
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Beno%C3%AEt_Mandelbrot
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Benoît Mandelbrot
59 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Benoît Mandelbrot →
Related Quotes
"I conceived, developed and applied in many areas a new geometry of nature, which finds order in chaotic shapes and pr…"
"Science would be ruined if (like sports) it were to put competition above everything else, and if it were to clarify …"
"I claim that many patterns of Nature are so irregular and fragmented, that, compared with Euclid — a term used in thi…"
"There is no single rule that governs the use of geometry. I don't think that one exists."
"The Mandelbrot set is the modern development of a theory developed independently in 1918 by Gaston Julia and Pierre F…"
"My life seemed to be a series of events and accidents. Yet when I look back I see a pattern."
"How Long Is the Coast of Britain?"
"Being a language, mathematics may be used not only to inform but also, among other things, to seduce."
"A fractal is a mathematical set or concrete object that is irregular or fragmented at all scales..."
"For most of my life, one of the persons most baffled by my own work was myself."