Category Archives: Books

Mandelbrot’s The Fractalist, Chapter 16: Princeton: John von Neumann’s Last Postdoc, 1953–54

The Chapter starts with the tale of a public lecture where Mandelbrot is excoriated – but then experiences a classic ‘Oppenheimer’ explanation. Following a fractal pattern, we then find Von Neumann providing another level of explanation on top of Oppenheimer. … Continue reading

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Mandelbrot’s The Fractalist, Chapter 15: Postdoctoral Grand Tour Begins at MIT, 1953

Mandelbrot heads to MIT (images above from this MIT group), studies under a pioneer and namer of ‘cybernetics’ and continues on his quest to uncover and master a Keplerian field of study. Best Quote(s) “Cybernetics” was a word Wiener had … Continue reading

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Mandelbrot’s The Fractalist, Chapter 14: First Kepler Moment: The Zipf-Mandelbrot Distribution of Word Frequencies, 1951

Our scientist-hero has identified a goal – creating a ‘Keplerian’ field of study which he can pioneer. Mandelbrot has found a mentor, Kastler, who understood the need to drift between worlds and excelled at it. He has a method to … Continue reading

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Mandelbrot’s The Fractalist, Chapter 13: Life as a Grad Student and Philips Electronics Employee, 1950–52

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“Unlike Szolem, I enjoy intellectual fencing and occasionally showing off. Otherwise—like Szolem—I absolutely stopped having patience for their games.” Like Tversky and Kahneman – there had to be a base rate. Mandelbrot needed to engage with his peers and barb … Continue reading

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Mandelbrot’s The Fractalist, Chapter 12 Growing Addiction to Classical Music, Voice, and Opera

Opera and classical music becomes a passion for some – but it has never been so for me. Synthetic, computer generated music on its own has never sounded good to me – but I do like how it can be … Continue reading

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Mandelbrot’s The Fractalist Chapter 09: A (Then Rare) Foreign Student at the École Polytechnique, 1945–47

As noted in his quote below, Mandelbrot enters Polytechnique literally in rags and is one of the few international students.  He devours the opportunities in front of him, while also realizing that the degree will provide him golden handcuffs that … Continue reading

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Mandelbrot ‘s The Fractalist Chapter 11: French Air Force Engineers Reserve Officer in Training, 1949–50

“A BLESSING THROUGHOUT LIFE: I never wonder who I am. To the contrary, many successive bureaucracies wondered endlessly.” Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractalist – Location 1995 Continue reading

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Mandelbrot’s The Fractalist 10: Pasadena: Student at Caltech During a Golden Age, 1947–49

This chapter documents the many remarkable minds and concepts that Mandelbrot encountered in his studies, all while he was searching for a remarkable topic to develop fully as his own.  His self reflection while wandering in a field of geniuses … Continue reading

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Mandelbrot’s The Fractalist Chapter 08: Paris: Exam Hell, Agony of Choice, and One Day at the École Normale Supérieure, 1944–45

“Good wine or cheese must not be rushed. So why rush good humans by pressing a cookie cutter on a malleable young mind?” Mandelbrot Continue reading

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Mandelbrot’s The Fractalist: Part 1, “How I came to be a Scientist” – Surviving World War 2

Chapter 1 Highlights Mandelbrot’s book tells the story in a fractal nature – bouncing big and small and returning to reinforce important topics.  From this first family photo Mandelbrot introduces us to the adults that shaped his young life, helped … Continue reading

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