Mandelbrot was born in Poland in November of 1924. He is now classified as a French-Jewish American. His family then moved to France. In 1947-1949 he studied aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology. During the year of 1951 Mandelbrot worked on many problems and published a variety of papers not only on math but in real life situations. Thanks to his two uncles,Benoit was introduced to mathematics. Mandelbrot married to Aliette Kagan during the year of 1955.

In 1975 while attending Harvard, he studied fractals called Julia-sets. Benoit used a computer to plot images of the Julia-sets based on the formula z² – μ. While studying topology of Julia-sets, he found fractals that are now named after him, (The Mandelbrot Set). The Mandelbrot Set is now defined as z² + c . During 1977 Benoit found a mathematical formula which stated then when a shape is displayed it contains a smaller version of itself.

-Mandelbrot

We believe a fractal is a shape that can be taken apart and zoomed in as many times as possible.''A geometric pattern that is repeated at ever smaller scales to produce irregular shapes and surfaces that cannot be represented by classical geometry. Fractals are used especially in computer modeling of irregular patterns and structures in nature.'' (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fractals)

“Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line”. – B.Mandelbrot (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beno%C3%AEt_Mandelbrot).He updated those thoughts in the introduction to The Fractal Geometry of Nature.

DuringMandelbrot's retirement in 1987, he decided to join the Yale Department of Mathematics. Also, in the year 1993 he received the Wolf Prize for physics as well as many other awards. Mandelbrot was also a top subject for a pop song. He was a big role model in lots of people's eyes as well.                               

                                               -Kylie and Amanda