He died of pancreatic cancer. Apparently he first developed the concept of a fractal when he was asked how long Great Britain's coastline is, when he realized that the answer seemed to grow as one "zoomed in" on the coastline.
His approach to math is interesting (quoted from the NYTimes article; link in post):
"Dr. Mandelbrot received more than 15 honorary doctorates and served on the board of many scientific journals, as well as the Mandelbrot Foundation for Fractals. Instead of rigorously proving his insights in each field, he said he preferred to “stimulate the field by making bold and crazy conjectures” — and then move on before his claims had been verified. This habit earned him some skepticism in mathematical circles."
Saturday, October 16, 2010
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