Fractals

Just read James Gleick's obit for Benoit Mandelbrot in The New York Times Magazine, December 26, 2010 issue, "Fractal Vision" and wrote this poem.

Charley Parker's blog, Lines and Colors has an interesting summary of Mandelbrot's work along with some stunning photographs of fractals.




 

INFINITE LENGTH

         I started looking in the trash cans of science for such phenomena.    
                                                           – Benoit Mandelbrot, 1926 - 2010

We are shapes that branch or fold
in upon ourselves, recursive.
We are not spheres or cones, circles
or smooth, do not travel in straight lines.
The same tide that ebbs in you, it flows
in me as the pattern blooms or fades
like the price of cotton. We are revived
like monsters on the fringes, recycled
from the bins of cast off thought.
We are noise in the phone lines,
surprises, clusters and quirks
beyond expectation, brainwaves
and high finance, seismic
in our questions and wild
with risk. We wonder if we exist.


Here's a talk Mandelbrot gave in February 2010 called "Fractals and the Art of Roughness."