Fractious fractals

Today, November 20, is the birthday of Benoît B. Mandelbrot (November 20, 1924 – October 14, 2010). He was a Polish-born, French and American mathematician, noted for developing a "theory of roughness" and "self-similarity" in nature and the field of fractal geometry to help prove it, which included coining the word "fractal". He later discovered the Mandelbrot set of intricate, never-ending fractal shapes, named in his honor.

I enjoy fractals, those engaging images in which the design repeats endlessly at every scale with a sort of kaleidoscopic beauty. They may be found in nature or be generated by complex mathematical formulae.

I confess that I first learned of Mandlebrot while reading a series of novels based on Isaac Asimov's robot stories. Madlebrot was the name of a robot character in the novels.