Father of Fractals: Benoit Mandelbrot dies at 85

The world is not smooth, made of perfect spheres and unbroken lines. Its edges are tattered and torn, ragged yet recognizable. Last week the world lost the man whose mathematics helped to explain those patterns we see all the time in nature.
On Thursday, Benoît Mandelbrot died. His great book The Fractal Geometry of Nature appeared in 1982, and its fascinating notion rests on the idea of a shape becoming more and more complicated the further in one zooms.

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His work was also influential in bringing about modern cell phone antennae.

If anyone wants to see a good show about it, check out an episode of Nova where he is featured.