I spent half my life, roughly speaking, doing the study of nature in many aspects and half of my life studying completely artificial shapes. And the two are extraordinarily close; in one way both are fractal.
Benoit MandelbrotWhen people ask me what's my field? I say, on one hand, a fractalist. Perhaps the only one, the only full-time one.
Benoit MandelbrotScience would be ruined if (like sports) it were to put competition above everything else, and if it were to clarify the rules of competition by withdrawing entirely into narrowly defined specialties. The rare scholars who are nomads-by-choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the settled disciplines.
Benoit Mandelbrot