Fractals and chaos

Description

"It is only twenty-three years since Benoit Mandelbrot published his famous picture of what is now called the Mandelbrot Set. The graphics were state of the art, though now they may seem primitive. But how that picture has changed our views of the mathematical and physical universe! Fractals, a term coined by Mandelbrot, are now so ubiquitous in the scientific conscience that it is difficult to remember the psychological shock of their arrival. What we see in this book is a glimpse of how Mandelbrot helped change our way of looking at the world. It is not just a book about a particular class of problems, but contains a view on how to approach the mathematical and physical universe. This view is certain not to fade, but to be part of the working philosophy of the next mathematical revolution, wherever it may take us. So read the book, look at the beautiful pictures that continue to fascinate and amaze, and enjoy! " From the foreword by Peter W Jones, Yale University This heavily illustrated book combines hard-to-find early papers by the author with additional chapters that describe the historical background and context. Key topics are quadratic dynamics and its Julia and Mandelbrot sets, nonquadratic dynamics, Kleinian limit sets, and the Minkowski measure. Benoit B Mandelbrot is Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Yale University and IBM Fellow Emeritus (Physics) at the IBM T J Watson Research Center. He was awarded the Wolf Prize for Physics in 1993 and the Japan Prize for Science and Technology in 2003.

First Sentence

THIS CHAPTER DESCRIBES THE CIRCUMSTANCES under which I had the privilege of discovering in 1980 the set that is the main topic of this book.

Description

Publisher description: It has only been a couple of decades since Benoit Mandelbrot published his famous picture of what is now called the Mandelbrot set. That picture, now seeming graphically primitive, has changed our view of the mathematical and physical universe. The properties and circumstances of the discovery of the Mandelbrot Set continue to generate much interest in the research community and beyond. This book contains the hard-to-obtain original papers, many unpublished illustrations dating back to 1979 and extensive documented historical context showing how Mandelbrot helped change our way of looking at the world.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Fractals and Chaos: The Mandelbrot Set and BeyondSpringer2004-01-09
• Fractals and chaosSpringer2004
• Fractals and ChaospaperbackSpringer2010-11-29
• Fractals and ChaosSpringer London, Limited2013-01-01