World News – US – Google Doodle Honors Mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot – 9to5Google

Google replaced its homepage logo with an innovative logo in honor of Benoit Mandelbrot, a Polish mathematician of the same name for the Mandelbrot Group.

Benoit Mandelbrot was born on November 20, 1924 in Warsaw, Poland, and received a non-standard education as a child. This was especially true because Benoit was the son of a Jewish family, which made World War II particularly influential on his life.. After moving to France before the outbreak of the war, Benoit was educated by his uncle, Szulim Mandelbrot, a mathematician who was living in Paris at the time.. After the war, Benoit Mandelbrot was able to attend university and eventually obtain a doctorate in mathematical sciences. .

Most famously, Benoit Mandelbrot is remembered for his work with fractals – and even for his formulation of the word « fractals » – in mathematics. Simply put, fractals can be described as geometric shapes based on patterns, or rules, that repeat infinitely when you magnify the fine details.. In addition to the significant contribution Benoit and IBM have made to computer science through the effort to digitally recreate fractals, several fractals such as the « Mandelbrot Set » serve as a demonstration of how to make mathematics a beautiful thing..

For just a small picture of the myriad of discoveries Benoit Mandelbrot helped find, you might be interested in a TED Talk, filmed a few months before Mandelbrot’s death in 2010, on « The Art of Roughness ».

Today’s Google Doodle shows Benoit Mandelbrot standing in front of the board, in the midst of a fractal lesson. On the left side of the board, the first « O » from « Google » has been replaced by a snowflake from Koch, one of the early fractals – discovered before the word was coined – that mathematicians and educators could easily draw without the aid of a computer. My favorite little detail in the doodles is that the artist left a transparent Benoit tie, which made the Mandelbrot animation on the right half of the blackboard shine through.

Throughout his life Benoit was driven by curiosity. His memory was wonderful. He played with ideas, and was always looking for relationships. Thus, he can have fun conversations with almost anyone, from brilliant scientists and artists to humble mechanics and schoolchildren.. A lot of science revolves around specializing, looking closely at narrower parts of the world. Benoit was a rare person who looked wider and thus saw more deeply.

In addition to accompanying doodles, Google search has included an interactive fractal viewer, where you can zoom in and out of a Mandelbrot set illustration, or simply press play and enjoy what can become a simple set of mathematical rules.

The Google home page is one of the most viewed web pages around the world, and the company often uses this page to draw attention to historical events, celebrations or current events such as « Coronavirus Helpers » and more using doodles. Colorful graphics are changed on regular basis.

Benoit Mandelbrot, Google Doodle, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, Fractal, Mathematics, Mandelbrot set