Benoit Mandelbrot – Father of Fractal Geometry

Benoit Mandelbrot has passed away, but his contribution to this world will remain an enduring legacy. Our local paper, The Age, ran an article as Father of fractal geometry dies .

 

I owe a lot to Benoit Mandelbrot. His Mandelbrot Set graphical representation of the formula Z(n+1) = Z(n)^2 + c iterated until it hit a threshold of 4.0 produced amazing images. It hooked me on computer graphics and the first full blown Windows program I ever wrote with Embarcadero C++ Builder created Mandelbrots as they are known. Here is an example produced by that program:

 

Mandelbrot

Mandelbrot

This is the area centred on X = -1.141690745, Y = 0.000157485 and Width = 0.0066459 with a maximum of 256 iterations. The colours change according to the number of iterations it takes to reach or exceed 4.0 in magnitude.

 

If anyone wants a copy of the program, I am happy to give it away. Just leave a comment and ask for it.

 

It is amazing how far a single person’s influence can go and I am very grateful for having been influenced to get involved and interested in computer graphics.

 

The bio page from TED Talks provides some details of Benoit Mandelbrot‘s life.

 

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics and embedded software products in Australia for nearly 30 years. For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.