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Benoit Mandelbrot, Educator
One of the greatest mathematicians of our age had a passion for education
“My life seemed to be a series of events and accidents. Yet when I look back, I see a pattern.” Benoit Mandelbrot (1924–2010)
Benoit Mandelbrot was a modern giant of mathematics whose work changed our perspective on the natural world. By “our” I mean everyone who has ever wondered about why things look and work the way they do. “Everyone” includes scientists, mathematicians, economists, artists, historians, medical researchers, and lay people.
Author of the seminal 1982 book, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, his best-known mathematical contributions include the concept of fractal dimension and its relation to roughness, fractional brownian motion, multifractal analysis, heavy-tailed probability models, and, of course, the mesmerizing Mandelbrot set.
Less well known is his passion for education. Although he did not teach many classes, Benoit had a childlike exuberance for learning and sharing this learning with others. He was a natural teacher who radiated his sense of wonder. He was especially interested in the education of students and was always eager to spark the joy of learning in them.
