Mandelbrot continued to excel in his studies despite the oppression of the Nazi occupation of France.  He studied shapes, and used the basic of geometry in novel ways to solve problems more fitting for older students.

Best Quote(s)

“True to our antiherding instinct, our family decided it was best to split up: the boys on their own, and the parents on theirs.” Chapter 5, Location 1068

It is remarkable that parents would make this decision – it had to have been agonizing.  And it was the right one.

“Not unlike sports, the bulk of training consisted of mastering a single but extremely arcane gesture.” Chapter 5, Location 1079

When brilliant minds comment on sport and athletics, the observations are always fascinating.

“Oradour-sur-Glane is a little town where the Waffen SS committed a horrible massacre in 1944, herding 642 villagers into a church and setting it on fire.” Chapter 5, Location 1118

Referring back to the family decision by the Mandelbrot’s to split up – the acts of violence by the Nazis defy the civility of modern life.  As we will see in a later chapter, the Mandelbrot decision saved the lives of their children.

“In a way, I was learning to cheat.”  Chapter 5, Location 1197

By learning to think in shapes, Mandelbrot would teach himself ways to think that even he considered cheating.  His life’s great accomplishment is taking that way of thinking, using it to study roughness and sharing it with the rest of humanity.

Page by Page, Chapter by Chapter

1068

“True to our antiherding instinct, our family decided it was best to split up: the boys on their own, and the parents on theirs.” Chapter 5, Location 1068

1074

“Few aspects of that time give reason for regret, but I forgot the names of the charity and the Angel.”

1079

“Not unlike sports, the bulk of training consisted of mastering a single but extremely arcane gesture.” Chapter 5, Location 1079

1085

“I acquired a lot of self-confidence, and when I became a homeowner, my experience as an apprentice toolmaker in wartime was a boon.”

1096

“My life was filled with potentially deadly situations that called for quick reckonings of odds.”

While in the train station overnight waiting to get back up forged papers after turning down the drink offer of a drunk.

“My life was not smooth.”

1118

Karl Marx Boulevard…

“After the alert, the “rightful” signs were quickly put back.”

“Oradour-sur-Glane is a little town where the Waffen SS committed a horrible massacre in 1944, herding 642 villagers into a church and setting it on fire.” Chapter 5, Location 1118

1136

“How nice to find you here. Do you remember me?”

Life and death at age —

1154

“The Lycée du Parc may be little known, but it is the keystone of the Mandarin system that seventeenth-century Jesuits had imported from China to France.”

1169

“… molding everyone to follow what was officially declared the straightest path to the best career.”

1186

“Learning mathematics from such books made me intimately familiar with a large zoo, collected over centuries, of very specialized shapes of every kind.”

A zoo of shapes. A zoo of constraints.

These shapes gave Mandelbrot a map – he could know his end goal.

1191

“This playful activity transformed impossibly difficult problems into simple ones.”

1197

“In a way, I was learning to cheat.”  Chapter 5, Location 1197

1207

“Both spent long evenings and weekends looking within the exams for old or new problems that I could not instantly “geometrize.” They never succeeded in stumping me.”

Teachers need great students.

1218

Art instructor at the Taupe, “It seems that this is a practical joke—a drawing by a virtual student from the outside. I would love to see the students in the arts program do as well.”