Benoit Mandelbrot, Mathematician, Dies at 85
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/us...elbrot.html?hp

Benoît B. Mandelbrot, a maverick mathematician who developed an innovative theory of roughness and applied it to physics, biology, finance and many other fields, died on Thursday in Cambridge, Mass. He was 85.
[...]
Dr. Mandelbrot coined the term “fractal” to refer to a new class of mathematical shapes whose uneven contours could mimic the irregularities found in nature.



I did research in the 80s on using 3D mandelbrot and julia sets as first approximations for developing custom flight simulators for Boeing customers.

Here's a nice toy for playing with them: http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/julia/explorer.html

Re: Benoit Mandelbrot, Mathematician, Dies at 85
 

Among other things computer animation would not be the same without Mandelbrot as fractals are used all of the time to create realistic environments. Big loss. R.I.P.