I went to the computer and tried to experiment. I introduced a very high level of experiment in very pure mathematics.

In fact, I barely missed being number one in France in both schools. In particular I did very well in mathematical problems.

I was in an industrial laboratory because academia found me unsuitable

The theory of chaos and theory of fractals are separate, but have very strong intersections. That is one part of chaos theory is geometrically expressed by fractal shapes.

Think not of what you see, but what it took to produce what you see.

When people ask me what's my field? I say, on one hand, a fractalist. Perhaps the only one, the only full-time one.

I conceived, developed and applied in many areas a new geometry of nature, which finds order in chaotic shapes and processes. It grew without a name until 1975, when I coined a new word to denote it, fractal geometry, from the Latin word for irregular and broken up, fractus. Today you might say that, until fractal geometry became organized, my life had followed a fractal orbit.